Administration
by Cyborg0
Summary: Some capes manifest powers that are very different from their shards, and some capes receive something very similar to the original. Taylor carries the Administrator shard, used to process and control informational systems with no upper limit. What happens when the powers she gets are a lot more direct than bug control?
1. Perception 1

I knew something was wrong long before I saw the locker. The snickers trailed me through the halls, dread building with each set of narrowed eyes and covered, whispering mouth. I sighed and slumped my shoulders, whatever straightness they had built up during the winter break evaporating like a drop of water skittering across the surface of a hot pan. I wished I knew what the people behind the whispering hands were thinking. I wished I understood what drove the Bitches to do what they did. Was it simply a way to build themselves up? Was it calculated, or just unthinking cruelty that drove them? Would they be ashamed one day? I supposed I would never know.

I climbed the last set of stairs to my locker. The throng of students had vanished, and I sighed a breath of relief. After the buildup from the whispering, an empty hallway was a welcome relief. There would be onlookers if the trio had planned something for me. It looked like whatever was planned would happen elsewhere. Maybe at lunch? My throat loosened somewhat as I continued towards my locker. I could handle lunch. That was later, and I had long since learned to handle things as they came, one at a time.

The smell quickly dashed my hopes. The stench was foreign I had no frame of reference to place it. Nothing in the world, as far as I knew, could ever smell that putrid. A mixture of puke, copper, and urine filled the air and assaulted my nose as I approached my locker. It was beyond disgusting, and even six feet away I had to fight not to gag. For a second I considered just turning around and reporting the smell to a janitor. Glancing around I still saw no one. Apparently the empty halls were a part of the prank. They didn't want to be implicated in such an escalation. Whatever they had put in there was far beyond anything else that had happened, I knew. With a sigh, I spun the dial with my combination, and lifted the latch that held the door closed. No… not even they could… this crossed the line.

The smell hit me like a blast of summer head and I began dry heaving. Just the sight of the locker half filled with soppy red waste was enough, but the flies, ants, and cockroaches were too much. I puked. Luckily I had the presence of mind not to get it all over my sweatshirt and shoes, instead aiming off to the side, my hands on either side of the open locker.

"Look at her!" a voice said from behind me. "She can't even handle a little prank!" Emma.

"I thought she'd be used to it," said another. Madison. "It's not too far off how she normally smells."

I knew Sophia was there, but before I could turn around to face my tormentors I felt a pair of hands on by back. Sophia's shove overcame my hold on either side of the locker and I was suddenly inside. I saw her face as I turned, dark glittering eyes underneath perfect corn rows. A dark, beautiful face twisted in hate and pleasure. Her hand was on the locker door, and then it was slammed shut. "I think she needs a bit of time to cool off after that, don't you?"

"NO!" I shouted. I finally found my voice, but it was too late. This was too much. "Sophia! Emma! Please, let me out!" I pounded on the thin metal door, but it was shut tight. I tried the locking mechanism, but it wouldn't move. I could hear laughing outside.

"See you later, Taylor!" Emma said. The voice was receding.

"Emma, please! Whatever I did, I'm sorry!" The smell overwhelmed me again and I threw up. My pleas were useless. My fists were useless. I was useless.

"I was wrong," I whispered to myself. I thought they had planned something at lunch. If only I knew what they were thinking. "I was wrong," was all I could think.

BANG! I struck the locker as hard as I could with my fist and felt something snap in my hand. The bang of the thin metal resounded down the empty hall as I screamed in pain and anger.

I started to cry. I was done. This was too much. They had beaten me. I had weathered everything they had thrown at me for a year and a half. Shoves, insults, theft. They had stolen and destroyed my mother's flute and even that hadn't broken me. But this…

I had broken something on my hand, vomit was running down the locker door and my sweatshirt, and I cried. Insects started to crawl on my ankles, curious, probing, and I stamped them off as best I could. My shoes squished into half coagulated pink gloop and insect bodies. I didn't get them all off, and the scratching was getting worse. Would they bite? Did I care? No.

No… No I didn't care. It was my fault. I had been wrong. I hadn't known what they were thinking. That was my fault.

 **Destination. Agreement.**

Maybe I deserved this.

 **Trajectory... Hesitation.**

It was dark, and I could see stars shining through the locker door.

 **Reassurance.**

…

 **Agreement.**

I saw something unimaginably huge among a veil of stars. Two objects- creatures- spinning and intertwining, and a third approached…

Suddenly I was outside of the locker, walking down the hallway. I was happy and strong. No… that wasn't true. I was still inside the locker, and I was outside in the hall. I was walking to class with my friends, thinking about that weak bitch Taylor. But I was Taylor too. I thought about how I had patrol later, how I was paired with Short Stuff. God that was going to be annoying. Maybe I was dying. Maybe I could duck out as we passed the docks… find some douchebag to fuck up…

I was Taylor. I was in the locker. I went totally still as I processed the extra senses I was receiving as I walked down the hallway with my friends. Sophia's friends…

…

Shadow Stalker's friends.

Wait a minute, what was I thinking? I could just phase through the… no. I couldn't phase through anything. I was Taylor.

" _How long do you think she'll be in there, Soph?" Madison asked._

 _I looked at her with a raised eyebrow. Sometimes she was as bad as Short Stuff, but she was a useful friend to have, "Who cares? She's there now and I'm going to class. She learned her place."_

I was calm now. I was in the locker. My shoes were getting soggy with refuse and my left hand was burning with pain. I could see the world through Shadow Stalker. Every sound, every smell, every touch.

Every thought.

I could look into her thoughts.

It was more than just that, though. It was like she was an extension of me. Her eyes and ears were mine. I seamlessly managed them like my own limbs and they blended together as a part of a whole. I focused.

 _I'll need to call Julia tonight. I rolled my eyes as the thought came to me. Always something to spoil my good mood. That ugly PRT bitch could go choke on a peanut for all the good she did me. I felt my phone buzz and I glanced at the screen. Speak of the devil, and she will come. I accepted the call and lifted the phone to my ear, "What do you want? You know I'm in sch—"_

" _Shut up and listen, Sophia, because if you don't we'll both be so deep in shit even you couldn't phase out of it. The PRT set up cameras throughout Winslow. There were complaints of bullying and your name came up." I stopped walking, and Emma and Madison were looking at me. I waved them off and turned away. Julia continued, "Armsmaster designed them and gave me the responsibility of keeping an eye on you. I saw you shove that girl in a locker."_

" _I-"_

" _Sophia, shut up! I can erase that part of the footage, but you need to go back, right now, and open that locker. You will stay away from that girl and anyone else you may be bullying from here on out. If you don't, you'll be headed straight to juvie, maybe prison after you're eighteen, and I'll be out of a job."_

 _I was grinding my teeth at this point, but my feet were headed back towards the Loser's locker. "I'm going," I said._

" _Good. Hurry. The less I erase the easier this will be. Get that done. Leave her alone. And don't talk about this ever again. Pretend this conversation never happened, even with me when we talk in the future. Do. You. Understand?"_

" _Got it," I said with gritted teeth._

 _Julia hung up without saying anything else, and I slipped the phone back into my clutch. I was back at the locker now, and I opened the latch using a bit of my power. The Loser stumbled out and crumpled to the floor, cradling her hand. Had she broken it? Seriously?_

"Alright Loser, here's the deal. I think you've had enough. From here on out, stay out of our way. Don't talk to us, don't look at us, don't think about us, and we'll leave you alone. Sound good?"

I looked down and I saw myself. I had tears in my eyes. My shoes and socks were stained pink. I was shaking and silently crying. I was pathetic.

I looked up and saw myself. I was strong, drunk with power. I had killed before. I was a snake in the grass, ready to take down larger prey.

I pushed back my power and regained myself. Shadow Stalker was waiting for my answer. Her thoughts becoming annoyed at the weakness I was showing. I nodded at her, then put my head between my knees.

"Good," she said, "I'm glad we have an understanding." _You are so fucking lucky._

I watched and listened as Shadow Stalker rejoined Emma and Madison. I went into the bathroom and cleaned myself up as best I could. It was difficult with my left hand throbbing in pain. The final bell for class rung while I was rinsing out my mouth and wiping off my shirt, and so I made my way to the nurse's office through empty halls. I showed the nurse my stained shoes and broken hand. I told her that someone had filled my locker with used tampons and they spilled all over my shoes when I opened it. I had broken my hand falling back on it awkwardly. The nurse had pity in her eyes as she ushered me into the bathroom and helped me take off my shoes and socks. She cleaned my legs off with disinfectant wipes then called my dad.

As I waited, I lost myself in Shadow Stalker's perspective. I listened to her thoughts. She was annoyed that she couldn't bully me anymore, but still had a residual pride and strength from ripping me apart emotionally. But that was done with, I thought. Now, everything would be different.

I was a parahuman. Something happened to me in that locker. I didn't remember what it was, but it was monumental. As far as I could tell, my powers came in two parts. One, I could receive the thoughts and sensations of other parahumans as if they were my own. Even now, I was seamlessly blending the Perspectives of both myself and Shadow Stalker into a single whole. It was like two bright spots of knowledge and understanding on a larger blank map. It was incredibly empowering to know exactly what my opponent was thinking, feeling, sensing.

For some reason, thinking of Shadow Stalker as nothing else than another Perspective felt right. That's exactly what it was. Capital 'P' Perspective. It helped to use the proper terminology when referring to my powers, and capes within my range were Perspectives. They were my tools to leverage and mold to my advantage, and only by using them properly would I reach my full potential.

The second part of my power was the ability to enforce sensations upon my other Perspectives. I had made Shadow Stalker feel her phone vibrating in her purse. I had made her see Julia's contact info on a blank screen, and I had made Shadow Stalker hear her PRT minder's voice. It had all been in Shadow Stalker's head, of course, but when I had perfect control over a person's senses, how would they ever know the difference?

Looking back, the solution I had devised had been perfect. My other Perspective's thoughts were as if they were mine, and so crafting the ideal illusion using gleaned information had been child's play. My goals were realized with a few simple tweaks on Shadow Stalker's perceptions. In five minutes I had solved the bullying problem that had plagued me for a year and a half.

I sat there on the padded patient table, swinging my legs aimlessly as I thought. I was pretty sure there was more to my power than just receiving Perspective and sending commands. I seemed to be superhumanly capable of leveraging the input and output of the information available to me. I wondered how powerful I could become with ten, twenty capes in my range. Would that even work, or was I limited to a single parahuman at a time? That would suck, but I was fairly confident that I would be able to manage a large number of perspectives at any time. After all, it wasn't hard to manage ten fingers, two arms, and two legs, right? To my power it was all the same.

As I waited for Dad to arrive and take me to the hospital, I learned about the rogue Ward, and in turn, the PRT, Wards program, and everything she knew about Brockton Bay capes. I couldn't dig through her thoughts, of course. I was simply following along with her most active thought, like listening to an audiobook named Shadow Stalker. Fortunately for me, however, cape life was all that Shadow Stalker seemed to think about. Being a cape was her life. The fights, struggles, and dominance were what she lived for.

"Taylor!" Dad was suddenly there, wrapping me in a hug.

"Hi, Dad," I said, hugging him back gingerly with my one good hand.

"What happened? The nurse said you broke your hand?" He let me go quickly, perhaps realizing he might have been hurting me. At first, I was annoyed that I didn't know what my dad was thinking, but then I caught myself with a chagrined smile. Barely a cape for an hour and I was already lamenting my powers didn't work on normal people. I guess that meant that Dad wasn't a cape like Armsmaster. That was silly, of course, as I already knew Armsmaster's real name was Colin, courtesy my other Perspective.

"I fell on my hand wrong," I said. "Someone put a bunch of gross… stuff in my locker as a prank and I panicked a bit. I fell back on it wrong. It's my fault, mostly."

I saw my dad's temper flare when I mentioned it was a prank, but the rational side took over quickly enough. He thought it was only a one-time prank, after all. He took me around the shoulders and led me to the door, "Let's get to the hospital." He turned towards the nurse, "Tell Principal Blackwell I'll be speaking with her in the next few days."

With that we were headed out of the school. We didn't talk much, which was fine with me. I was concentrating on how far my range was. As I got into the car, the bell rang and my second Perspective packed up her bags, her torrent of thoughts still crystal clear. We pulled out onto the street and drove for a bit before my awareness of her winked out. I estimated my range was somewhere between two and three hundred yards, and there was no degradation of control until that limit. That was in a single direction, so that gave me a swath of control up to six hundred yards total. Not too shabby. I allowed my head to fall back onto the headrest and closed my eyes.

The trip to the hospital was uneventful. No new parahumans entered my range while we travelled or while I was treated. The doctor explained, using blurry x-ray prints as an aide, that I had a hairline fracture and gave me a splint which secured my pinky finger in place while it healed. It would need to stay in the splint for 4 weeks, with an additional two weeks of no strenuous use of that hand.

Dad and I didn't speak much on the way home, as normal. That was fine with me. I was still thinking about my power. I wasn't exactly the go-to person for information on parahumans. Our world history class hadn't covered parahumans yet, and I wasn't a cape geek either. However I was still aware that my powers were… not normal. The Simurgh was telepathic, and the consensus was that it was the only telepathic entity. Was that wrong? Did telepathic capes exist, and they were just very careful about revealing that ability? It was like finding out Alexandria wasn't invincible, or Eidolon wasn't the strongest parahuman on the planet, barring Scion of course. Some things just _were_ , and it just _was_ that telepathy wasn't a possible power.

 _Apparently not._

Not only that, I could mess with my Perspective's senses. I wasn't sure how far I could take that part of my power. I had already manipulated three of Shadow Stalker's five senses. Touch, sight, and sound. I was sure that smell and taste would be just as easy. Suddenly a thought occurred to me. Could I cause pain? Could I create the sensation of overwhelming, overpowering pain in my other Perspectives? That was simply the sense of touch, after all. I shuddered at the thought, and hoped I would never have to resort to using pain so violently that it would disable a person. There was so much to test, so much to learn. So much I needed to find out as soon as possible.

Dad steered into our driveway and I hopped out. Dad grabbed my backpack before I could get it myself. "I don't think so, Taylor. Take it easy or you will make that finger worse."

I rolled my eyes. "Thanks, Dad," I said.

As we stepped into the kitchen, Dad turned to me and said, "OK, Taylor, something is different with you. You're too happy after what happened at school. Let me in on the good news so I can stop worrying."

I knew I was acting out of character. I had endured bullying for the Bitches by closing down, hiding, and not talking. I thought about Mom all the time, and my finger would take a month and a half to heal. I should be a miserable wreck. And this morning, I had been miserable. And yet… the Bitches were going to stop. It was done, and I was a cape.

"There were a few bullies at school," I finally said, "but that's done now. They won't bother me anymore. Not after what happened today."

"You're absolutely right, they're not," Dad said. "Tomorrow I'm going down there to give Principal Blackwell a piece of my mind."

I put my good hand on one of his fists, which had bunched up on top of the table. "No dad, that's not needed. There's been an… agreement between us and I won't be bothered anymore. If you make a big deal about what happened today you'll ruin it."

"Taylor, that's not how these things work," Dad said.

"Not normally," I replied, "but this time is different, I promise." He looked doubtful, so I added, "I promise that if they try anything, you'll be the first to know, OK?"

"What could you possibly have done that would make them stop? Stuffing your locker full of that stuff goes so far beyond the norm…"

 _If only you knew._ "Please Dad, just trust me on this. We have an understanding, but it only works if everything stays quiet."

"It sounds like you're playing a dangerous game, Taylor." He paused, hesitant before saying, "You aren't getting involved with… gangs, are you?"

I was speechless at first, my mouth open wide, before I burst out laughing, "No way Dad, nothing like that. I have this handled and it's behind me now. That's why I'm so happy. If I end up being wrong I'll tell you. Promise."

That night I started my cape journal. I had possible names, costume sketches, ideas for my debut, everything. But the biggest concern was the nature of my power- telepathy. How powerful was I in comparison to the average cape, and how dangerous would others perceive me to be? It was the most pressing question for my cape life- and if my fears proved true might be the most important question for my continued survival in general.

With that concern in mind, I had two main avenues of research. One, I could go online to places like PHO to discover a bit more about capes in general. This was a safe route, but the payoffs would be slim. There was sure to be a lot of misinformation as well, as capes were tight lipped about the extent of their powers.

The other option was to take a bus down to the PRT headquarters downtown, get some coffee or tea at a nearby restaurant, and case the joint with my powers. Basically- place myself within range of the Protectorate capes, wards, and whoever else shows up and spy to my heart's content. The risk would be low, the information payoffs potentially huge, and I'd get a hot drink to boot. That being decided, I turned off the desk lamp and went to bed.

****ADMINISTRATION****

The next day at school was… strange to say the least. I got in early and headed to my locker. It had been cleaned of waste and everything seemed to be in place. My books were intact, as they were stored up on a shelf, above the main compartment on the bottom. Thank goodness for small victories, I suppose. I was heading to my homeroom when I gained a new Perspective. Shadow Stalker was her usual angry self. Her patrol had been beyond boring, with no chance to ditch Vista and strike out on her own. She was also annoyed that Emma and Madison had pushed back so much when they were told to stop messing with me, but they had caved at her insistence. I smiled at that. Good, everything was still holding up from yesterday.

I was heading down the second main corridor, and Shadow Stalker was heading up the opposite direction. I wanted to learn a bit more about my power, so I headed towards her. I stopped short of where I knew Shadow Stalker's locker to be. Emma and Madison weren't with her, so this was a good opportunity for me. My perspectives converged as she came around the corner and within sight of me, except with a small push of my power I erased all perception of Taylor from Shadow Stalker. The girl walked right by me without the faintest recognition that I was there. Success!

Shadow Stalker was opening the locker, and I wanted to try one more thing. I was much more hesitant about this one, but I needed to know. Besides, it would be harmless and testing in a controlled environment was a lot better than trying it for the first time in a desperate situation. Shadow Stalker glanced around and opened her locker by phasing into the lock and manipulated the latch. The locker popped open and she reached in for her books. As she picked up her particularly heavy history book, I sent a twinge of pain to her shoulder. She yelped and dropped the book onto the ground. I smiled at the second success, although it was slightly grim.

Shadow Stalker rolled her shoulder with a scowl, thinking that she may have injured it during a recent workout or patrol. I retreated while I was ahead, and left for my first class.

I took my seat in my first class, computer science with Mrs. Knott, and considered the three things I had just learned about my power. One, I could erase things or people from other cape's senses. Two, I could, if I needed to, inflict pain. Three, pain felt from my other Perspectives didn't affect me. I suppose it was a built in safeguard my power. Very useful. The night before I had been concerned about not being able to participate directly in combat, but the fact I could cause pain meant that I was no slouch in confrontation.

The rest of the day continued in the same vein. Avoiding the trio was easy, as they always stuck together and therefore within my sight. It was… nice. I could definitely get used to it. Sure, I still received glares and whispered taunts, but I figured that would dry up once the general population of girls realized that their cronyism wouldn't curry favor with the Bitches. There was no soda waiting for me on my seats in class, and I was able to find a quiet spot to eat at lunch. Interestingly, some of the girls who were secondary to the trio's group reported where I was. That pissed me off to no end, but fortunately nothing came of it. Even if they did try to find me, I would have simply moved before they arrived.

****ADMINISTRATION****

Saturday was a bright and chilly January morning, and so I bundled up tightly for my trip to the

'library.' I kissed Dad on the cheek and took a bus to the Boardwalk. That was the intermediary destination for anyone who wanted to get downtown from the docks, as all bus lines worked off of a few popular hubs around the city. Shoppers were already browsing the overpriced clothing and jewelry stores, drinking their lattes from non-chain coffee shops, and having a blast doing it. Despite my somewhat condescending view of the Boardwalk, the tourism was a boon to the Bay, one of the only bright spots on a city whose fortunes were slowly but inevitably fading away. The bus to downtown was on the opposite side of the boardwalk, and I wasn't going to complain about a leisurely stroll through one of the city's nicest districts.

I leaned up against the wooden railing that overlooked the beach. Down below I saw crabs scuttling sideways, intent on destinations and tasks totally unknown to me. They cast long shadows on the sand, little creatures with monstrous eight legged shadows.

The sun was still low enough in the sky to sparkle over the Atlantic Ocean. It was a beautiful sight to be sure, but knowing the monster that lurked below the waves, the sight of the ocean always put a slight twist in my stomach. Leviathan was basically the sole cause of the Bay's economic crisis, after all. Shipping large amounts of product between continents became an increasingly risky prospect. It wasn't that Leviathan actually attacked ships on the ocean. No, that was something that villains did, and while annoying, it wasn't the cause of businesses becoming unwilling to transport their goods over water. It was that Leviathan attacked coastal locations, and the hundreds of millions of dollars of cargo waiting on container ships were the first things to be destroyed by its tidal waves. It wasn't just the cargo in the bays and harbors that were at risk, either. Leviathan's waves had sunk ships and destroyed harbors for miles around the primary target. The ocean was beautiful on the surface, yes, but below waited a terror.

I shook my head of the thought. The idea of a beautiful veneer covering a monster was hitting a little too close to home at the moment. The things I could do with my power if I just… didn't care? It was certainly worse than a brute going on a rampage, or a thinker rigging business or elections. I suspected I could, with just a bit of effort, make a cape go insane. Either by inflicting unbearable pain, or by making them unable to distinguish reality from illusion.

I was at the midway point of the boardwalk when I gained a new Perspective. They were walking towards me, eyes darting between various shoppers and storefronts. She was looking at a man just in front of her. _No wedding ring, but his thumb keeps moving to the finger. Recent divorce? No. Cheating? Not nervous enough. Widower._ Well, that was a trip, I thought. Obviously a Thinker of some kind. I continued to listen to her thoughts and moved off to the side of the crowd. I erased myself from her perspective before she got anywhere near me. Her name was Lisa… No, wait. It was Sarah. Lisa was an assumed name, but one so ingrained into her that at first I missed the difference. As I continued to listen to her thoughts I gained a grasp on her powers. She had the ability to piece together correct answers from the smallest scrap of information. Listening to her mind and power work was incredible, like having a front row seat to an orchestral masterpiece. I was still listening to her power, slightly off to one side of the busy boardwalk as she passed. I had erased myself from her perception, but apparently that wasn't enough for someone like her. _Unusual flow of people to the right. Going around an unseen object. Something on the ground? No. Wait. Unusual shift in behavior. Crowd no longer avoiding the spot. Possible Stranger. Bug out._

I stared at her with my mouth open. Damn, that was impressive. She picked up her pace a notch and pulled out a phone. She dialed a number, and a male voice answered, "Yeah?" The voice was calm and deep.

"I'm at the boardwalk, being followed. Possible Stranger. I need some assistance."

"Got it. Meet at the usual spot. We'll be there to get you out if you need it."

"OK."

With that Sarah snapped the phone shut and continued her brisk pace. Her thoughts were moving extremely quickly and I could feel pressure building in her head. _Coil's men?_ _No, no reason to keep such a close eye on me. He made his threats and abilities clear enough. Nothing to gain from following me. Maybe additional intimidation? Cement my resignation to working with the Undersiders? Possible. Not enough information to come to a conclusion._

So she was working for Coil, but against her will. That struck a chord deep within me, and my anger built. To just keep someone under your thumb like that was so wrong. I vowed that I would try and help Sarah- no, she thought of herself as Lisa- in any way I could.

Lisa waved down a cab and got into the back seat, shutting the door firmly and giving an address to the cabbie. I recognized the street as being deep inside the docks, in an area with many abandoned buildings. It was likely close to the Undersider's lair. As the cab started to pull away, I made a split second decision. A shadowy form appeared in the window seat next to Lisa, existing only as a reflection within the glass. "Hello, Tattletale. Don't worry, I won't follow and I'll be here to help in the future. Just… don't tell your boss about me. I promise it'll work out to your benefit."

Lisa's power went into overdrive as the figure vanished from her sight. She created and dismissed possibilities as the speed of light and I listened intently as she began to model a few plausible scenarios. As she left my range, I shuddered despite feeling good about my message. Lisa was a good person in a bad situation, and I wanted to help. But her power was downright scary.

I considered the encounter as I rode toward downtown. Apparently, Thinkers were my arch-enemy, considering they would be best equipped to see through my illusions. I would need to be more careful than I had previously thought, if the second cape I met was able to partially compromise my location. Hopefully no one at the PRT had the sort of insight that Lisa could bring to bear. From what I knew of the local capes, there was no Thinker on the team, so that was a good thing for me. It was only the PRT troops I needed to worry about. I still couldn't break through to affect non-parahuman minds, not for lack of trying.

I was getting into the thick of the downtown area when two Perspectives expanded my senses, almost at the same time. Apparently, they both had day jobs, as their thoughts were turned towards mundane business matters, but I was still able to glean their identities. Kaiser and Krieg, working their day jobs at Medhall Corp, Brockton Bay's very own pharmaceutical giant. I scowled and shook my head at the revelation as they dropped from my range after only a few seconds. Medhall was apparently a front for the local Nazi gang, Empire 88. Joy. Well, that was information on which to act another day. Today was about reconnaissance, so I kept going for 3 more stops before exiting the bus. A few more blocks and I saw the PRT building across the street.

I didn't approach of course. Going into the lion's den was completely foolish for someone like me. Besides, my range was more than capable of enclosing the entire building in my influence. I took refuge in a Starbucks across the street and ordered a tea. I took a seat away from the window and took a notebook and pen from my bag. Hopefully it looked like I was doing homework.

I had received six new Perspectives as I had approached the PRT building and I had to stop myself from bouncing in my seat with excitement. Jackpot! I focused on the influx of sensations, emotions, thoughts, and actions, learning everything I could about the local Protectorate and Wards. Shadow Stalker was here, of course, watching some sort of console with various feeds from around the city. She was in a poor mood, even more than normal, so I quickly surmised it to be some sort of dreaded chore. Nothing to learn there, moving on.

Vista was currently in the gym, practicing warping space to keep a ball rolling around the room. By twisting the space of the floor, she made a constant downhill slope for the ball to roll across. It was actually quite mesmerizing to see it from Vista's point of view. The blue padded floor rolled and undulated under her power. There was no sound to her power, of course, just a silent and casual breaking of the laws of physics. Vista herself was obviously enjoying the exercise, as it had recently occurred to her that warping the space of the ground was a viable tactic for changing the battlefield.

Clockblocker, Dennis, was currently playing a prank on his fellow ward. He cradled an almost bursting water balloon in his hands, with two fingers carefully pinching a needle between them. He crept into Aegis- Carlos' room. I blushed at the sight of the boy's well-toned torso as he slept, but certainly appreciated the view. Clockblocker held the balloon over his friend's head and popped it with the needle, simultaneously freezing the orb of water in time. He retracted his hands and slowly crept away from the bedside. His thoughts were somewhat darker than Vista's, his pranks revealing a somewhat mischievous sense of humor. He wasn't anything like Shadow Stalker, of course, just… a rebel at heart.

The Wards were not the only capes there, of course. Currently Miss Militia and Armsmaster were inside the glass and steel building. Miss Militia was doing paperwork and had a sunny disposition similar to Vista. Armsmaster was at a computer console in some sort of laboratory, scanning over lines of code in one monitor and data about Endbringers in another- the Simurgh in particular. His thoughts were dark and troubled, and he was intense. Very similar to Shadow Stalker, but without the inherent cruelty. He was an extremely driven person, and I certainly wouldn't want to find out what he did to those who got in his way.

I took as sip of my tea, glancing around the Starbucks. No one was paying attention to me, and no capes in my range had a view of my haven. I jotted down a few details as I considered my power in the presence of multiple capes. I was astounded that I was able to process so much information simultaneously. I was experiencing six different lives in addition to my own, all of it with a clarity as if I was in six different places. Dreaming, training, brooding, pranking, writing, and coding. Not only was I receiving it all, I was able to consider each of my Perspectives, and if I so chose, could create six 'augmented' realities for my Perspectives. It was... humbling... in a way. Practicing on Shadow Stalker earlier during school allowed me to get familiar with my powers, but I didn't care for the girl at all. Frankly? She was a terrible person. But Lisa, and now the Wards and Protectorate? They were nice people, for the most part. Armsmaster was a bit intense, and Clockblocker's pranks and humor were in need of moderation, but otherwise, I loved the idea of knowing and working with these capes. But with what my powers were?

Armsmaster pounded his fist into the desk next to the holographic keyboard and I began to pay closer attention to what was frustrating him. _Hardest to predict. Capable of telepathy and precognition. Motives involve cascading events too far into future to model. Also need to factor possibility of Simurgh knowing about and circumventing the predictive software._ Armsmaster's thoughts continued on in the same onslaught of progress around increasing the efficiency of his program, but it was his visceral reaction to when he considered the abilities of the Endbringer. Telepathy and precognition. He had experienced a twisting of his gut when he considered it. Those were the Simurgh's trademarks, and while I couldn't tell the future, I was most certainly telepathic and then some.

So.

Shit.

I certainly didn't want to reveal the full extent of my abilities with that sort of fear about telepathy floating around. But perhaps I didn't have to. I considered what I had done with Lisa, and the beginnings of a plan began to creep into my mind. With my sort of power and ability to manipulate a cape's reality, actually being in the presence of capes was not necessary. I smirked as I flipped the page on my notebook and began a new topic. It was time to plan out my big debut.


	2. Perception 2

_You can do this, Taylor._

Finding the Undersider's lair was not a difficult thing for a cape such as myself. Simply walking in a spiral pattern away from the address Tattletale had provided to the cabbie yielded their location within twenty minutes- the second floor of the Redmond Welding building, a red bricked monster of an abandoned factory. It was early Sunday morning, and I had announced to my dad that I was starting up a running routine. This was true. I did indeed jog the few miles between my house and the Undersider's lair. I also planned to continue the routine, using it as an opportunity to frequently pass the Medhall building, approximately half an hour's run from where I lived. The ability to gather dirt on E88 was too good to pass up.

Dad had balked at the idea, and only allowed me to go when I agreed to bring a container of pepper spray with me. It was a good idea, to be honest, as I was just as weak against baseline humans as I had been before the locker.

That was the key. I had considered it last night after my lengthy observation of the PRT building downtown. My strength lay in surrounding myself with capes. The more, the better. Heck, they technically didn't even need to be on my side. Every cape was on my side when I was the one creating their reality. So, despite my misgivings, I would need to make myself known to at least _some_ other parahumans to achieve my goals of cleaning up Brockton Bay. But that was only part of it.

As of right now, I was a total loner. As much as I was working to improve my relationship with Dad, the fact remained that I had hidden a year and a half of bullying from him, and I wasn't planning on telling him about my powers anytime soon. Even if I trusted him, the secret was too big, too dangerous. I wanted friends. I wanted people I could talk to. I had lived too long along, and I was too capable of accomplishing great things to go it alone. I had considered the Wards at first, but had shied away from that option, at least for now. I would have needed to deal with Shadow Stalker, somehow maintain secrecy around the real nature of my power in the face of a national governmental organization, and deal with being accountable to the public. It was an untenable option for me. No, it would be better to be a part of an independent but friendly hero group such as New Wave or the Guild. Each had friendly relationships with the Protectorate without actually being subject to each and every rule and regulation.

That didn't leave many options, but I still had some leads to follow. Lisa was a likable person. Yes, the Undersiders were villains, but they were basically unknowns, with no gang connections and no high profile crimes to their name. If Lisa was representative of the rest of the group, breaking them away from Coil was a definite option.

There were two people in the Undersider's lair at the moment. Both were asleep so all I received from them were strangely disjointed dreamscapes. I had no idea who they were, unfortunately, and it was still early in the morning. The Undersiders were based in a particularly dangerous area of the docks, and I wasn't safe outside. I need to be closer to my two Perspectives- the potentially hostile villains- instead.

I entered the bottom floor of the Welding building and looked around a bit. It was abandoned, plain and simple. Everything was stripped bare except for the heaviest of furniture, which was bolted to the floor, and piles of trash that naturally migrated to the corners of the room. Near the center of the building was a spiral staircase that led to the second floor, which led up to the lair proper.

I moved through the abandoned rows of belts and machinery, away from the door to the opposite end of the factory. That way any baseline human who showed up wouldn't immediately spot me. I settled in to wait on a particularly clean stool against the wall and examined my Perspectives. One was having pleasant dreams about walking dogs in a huge park. The trees were green and everything was in full bloom, giving the dogs more than enough to smell. The walkway was wide and perfectly straight, continuing infinitely into the distance before vanishing in a single point. There was no one else around. Just the dreamer and the dogs. Dreams were so weird, doubly so when you could experience them while awake. But realizing I could experience others' dreams was not my biggest epiphany during my PRT stakeout.

Yesterday at the coffee shop, my brain had been in high gear, churning out permutation after permutation of how to make my first steps in Brockton Bay's community of heroes and villains. During my brainstorming session, I had analyzed every angle, every benefit and drawback of my choices. It had only been after I had come to the conclusion that the Undersiders were the best choice did I realize that my thinking had not been normal. It had been... greater, somehow. I knew without a doubt that I would never pick a group of criminals as my primary choice without some sort of change in the way I thought.

The dreaming girl woke up to the sound of slight whining from the adjacent room and I got my first look at the upstairs living area. Bitch's room well-furnished and surprisingly clean for a sixteen-year-old girl. There was a standing lamp and a rug that surrounded her bed to help with the cold floors, as well as a television on top of a dresser opposite the bed. Next to the dresser was a mannequin with a thick fur jacket and topped with a plastic dog mask.

Bitch took three leashes from a bin by the door. The common area was also well furnished, with two couches surrounding a coffee table and facing an entertainment center, complete with huge TV, multiple video game consoles, and floor standing speakers. In the center of this room was a waist-high wrought iron gate. It ran around the ledge created by the spiral staircase, twisting downwards to the abandoned rows of machinery and my location. In contrast to Bitch's bedroom the common area was messy. A stack of four pizza boxes and used cups adorned the coffee table, while a table near the stairs was littered with random objects that had been left there as various Undersiders came and went. My stomach flipped as I was fairly certain there was a pistol on the table, but it quickly left my field of vision.

Bitch opened the scratching door and three large dogs bounded out.

"Judas, Brutus, Angelica, sit!"

Oh, the dogs. I hadn't considered the dogs.

"Good." Bitch scratched each of the dogs in turn.

I looked at the door on the opposite side of the building. I didn't think I would get to it without the dogs hearing.

"Ready for a walk?" The dogs responded with violent tail and butt wagging.

I tried to slide off the stool as quietly as I could. My sneakers silently making contact with the floor. If I could just hide behind a machine, the dogs would go to the door and completely pass me by. It was a good plan, and I gradually shifted more weight onto my feet. Then the metal chair shifted as my butt slid off, just slightly, and the distinctive chirp of a shifting chair leg echoed around the lower floor. It wasn't too loud, and Bitch didn't hear it. She did, however, see the perking ears and turned heads of her dogs as they looked at the spiral staircase.

"Brutus, go! Angelica, Judas, stay." I watched in horror as Brutus burst into action, running towards the stairs, with Bitch close behind him.

Oh shit. Oh shit… Oh shitshitshit.

The steel staircase rattled as Brutus ran down the stairs, and I ducked out of sight. Fortunately, the sound had reached the dogs' ears though the opening of the staircase, and so _Brutus doesn't know where the sound came from_. Wait a minute, that had been Bitch's thought.

"Brutus, search!" I watched in horror from my second Perspective as the dog bounded out towards the wall perpendicular to my hiding spot and the door. The big dog's paws scratched on the concrete floor as he scrabbled around, nose pointed down and sniffing.

Think, Taylor! Why the hell was I here? Because it had seemed like a good idea yesterday. Stupid power, influencing me into picking the group with the parahumans that seemed to be most equipped to find me. I shook my head to clear it. _Not important right now._ What were my options?

One- I could impersonate Lisa. Try to get her to call off Brutus when she sees me with Lisa's face. This would likely work, however it would tip my hand as to my capabilities. I did not want to reveal what I could do to the Undersiders so early. There was no guarantee my plan to integrate and redirect their path would work, and that would leave me in a terrible position when dealing with Coil.

Two- I could change my face into a stranger's and let Brutus catch me. Claim I was here on Lisa's orders. Have Bitch call Lisa, hint that I was the person at the boardwalk yesterday. Drawback was it put me in a vulnerable position, both with Bitch and with the Undersiders in general. I did not intend to reveal my physical self to the Undersiders for the time being, no matter my face. The main advantage of this choice was hiding my powers.

Brutus had reached the corner of the factory and was now heading towards my position. I needed to make a decision, and quickly.

Option three-

"Rachel," said an inhumanly deep voice from behind my second Perspective. Bitch whirled around and I saw my avatar through her eyes. It was... for lack of a better word, a void in reality. Completely black and dull, without a single ray of light reflecting off of the human shaped figure. Rachel simply saw a hole in the outline of a person- a portal into the blackness of inter-galactic space. While no light was reflected from the surrounding environment, small specks of light and colorful swirls sparsely dotted my avatar's body: stars and galaxies. When I moved, the stars and galaxies stayed put, creating a parallax effect to further sell the idea that you were peering into the void. I also added a warping effect around my avatar. He was standing in between Rachel and the door, blocking it from her view. However, she could see a twisted refraction of the door, curving over my avatar's head like a halo. The straight lines of the doorway were smudged like a wavelength around the crown of my avatar's head. It was my attempt at recreating the way that black holes bent light around themselves, to add to the theme of my assumed persona. Honestly? It was a terrifying sight to behold, it was like being confronted with exactly how small you really were.

To her immense credit, Bitch wasn't fazed by the sight, even though I felt her fear. Bitch whistled twice, the shrill sound echoing through the machine shop. "Brutus, come!" Brutus immediately broke off from his search and bounded back to his owner. I was impressed. Bitch and her dogs worked together like a machine. It was obvious that Bitch understood her dogs to a degree that must've been assisted by her power.

"Rachel, I am here to speak with Tattletale. I am not going to fight you, and I mean no harm."

"Yeah?" Bitch said, "Tough. Shouldn't have come here." With that, Brutus bounded up to Bitch, sat, and looked at her questioningly. Bitch turned away from my avatar, looked at Brutus, and I felt her confusion. Brutus should have been paying attention to my avatar, waiting for a command from Bitch such as 'hurt' or 'hold.' From my hiding place, I smirked.

"Brutus can't see me. I choose who I wish to reveal myself to. Also, do not order your dog to attack. Coming into contact with me would hurt him."

Bitch glowered at me but believed the lie. It looked like I had averted disaster, at least for now. I was about to say thank her, but something about her mind stopped me. It didn't seem like the right word. "Good. Now as I said, I am here to speak with Tattletale. It concerns a proposal that will be beneficial to the Undersiders, you included."

"Why her? She's not in charge."

"No, and I will speak with Grue as well. But for now, Tattletale is who I need.

I felt suspicion spark in Bitch's mind. The way that she thought was different. There was a primal anger to her, but she certainly wasn't dumb. "You know a lot about us."

"Yes." My avatar gestured to himself, "My form is well suited to gathering information. Now please, will you or Regent call Tattletale?" Mentioning Regent might throw more fuel onto the fire, I knew, but I needed to keep Bitch off balance. The stronger and more informed I appeared, the less likely it was Bitch would decide to fight.

Bitch was thinking things over, and I was surprised about what directions her thoughts were taking. She was primarily concerned with looking weak in front of Grue, rather than a desire to get this stand-off resolved. If she called, it would suggest she couldn't handle herself. That was not a line of thinking I wanted her to follow, because I could already see where it would lead. I woke up Alec with what felt like a cold bucket of water being dumped on him. As soon as he was shocked from sleep, I stopped the manipulation so he was left wondering exactly why he was gasping for air with tingles going through his body.

"Grue will be impressed you caught me. I did not intend to be detected until Tattletale arrived, so I could speak with her without causing a situation like this."

"Words," Bitch said dismissively to my compliment. She did, however, take her phone out of her pocket and make a call.

The phone was answered by the same deep voice Tattletale had called the day before. Grue. "Yeah?"

"Almost here? I caught a cape on the first floor, asking for Tattletale."

"Who?" Grue asked. "Tattletale's stalker?"

Bitch scowled at the question. She didn't like people pressing her for more details, and didn't understand why he needed more. There was a cape she caught, in their base, and Grue needed to get here. Why was further talked needed?

"Yeah, maybe."

"Be right there, we're both a few minutes out."

Bitch hung up without a reply and went back to scowling at me. I didn't see a need to reply, so I had my avatar cross its hands behind its back. Regent was currently walking around his room in a convincing imitation of a shuffling zombie finding clean clothes with a slow but indomitable progress, and I had to stifle a giggle.

It wasn't long before Grue and Lisa entered my range at a fast jog and Bitch's phone rang.

She answered it with a, "What?"

"He still here? Got it handled?"

Rachel scoffed, "Of course I handled it. Factory floor." Then she hung up again.

Though my power I heard Grue say, "Wait don't- damn it, Rachel!" Once again, I had to stifle a giggle. These supervillains were certainly criminals, regardless of how petty the crimes were at the moment, and from what I had gleaned through my telepathy Alec and Rachel had some dark pasts. But even considering all that? They were likable. Even Rachel. I may have had a huge advantage there, being able to step inside her mind and understand how she thought, but still… I think I could grow to like them.

Darkness filled the inside of the building, and suddenly I couldn't see anything, nor could I via Bitch's Perspective. So this was Grue's power. It was impressive. I focused on his Perspective, just a dozen feet beyond the door to the building. I enforced my avatar's presence to them, and had been from the second they had become Perspectives, so when Grue stepped through the door, guiding Tattletale by the hand, I had turned the avatar to face him. As soon as Brian had stepped into the room I had regained vision via his Perspective, despite his darkness filling the entire bottom half of the factory. _Score another for my power_.

I also began hearing Regent calling out from the top of the spiral staircase, "Yo, Grue, why'd you turn off the lights? Hello?"

I waited patiently for Grue to approach, examine my avatar, and choose a spot to stand for him and Lisa. I could have simply spoken to him, let him know that I could see through his darkness, but restrained myself. Giving away more than I needed to would serve no purpose.

Finally, the darkness disappeared, and my avatar was facing three of the four Undersiders, with Regent noisily stomping down the metal stairs. Tattletale was smirking, but I could hear her power going into overdrive as she examined the human shaped void, "Nice projection," she said, "Make it yourself?"

She was slightly mistaken, of course. Her power had correctly deduced that the thing she saw wasn't a real person, but it certainly wasn't a projection in the way she was thinking. Looks like her power had a weakness in that she used Occam's Razor to a large degree. When the real answer was far outside the norm or she was given bad information, she could be fooled. Well, maybe not fooled, but at least be misled to a somewhat false conclusion.

I turned slightly to face her, ignoring her question, as it was primed to give her power hints about the nature of my abilities, "Hello again, Tattletale. I apologize for coming by unannounced, but I thought you would have been here. I was just a few minutes too early, it seems." I realized I was speaking like a supervillain mastermind, so I shifted my avatar's posture slightly to make it seem more human. "I'd like to talk about joining your team."

 _Sudden shift in tone and word choice. Slight social awkwardness. Nervous about this meeting, even though he… wait- speaking directly to me shows lack of male preferential treatment to Brian- she is projecting strength. Young, likely our age. Definitely not sent by Coil._

Well… damn. She was _really_ good.

"No. No way," Rachel said.

"Bitch, this isn't totally up to you and you know it," Brian said, turning her direction slightly, but not taking his eyes away from my avatar. "We'll vote on it. That's how we agreed to handle new members."

Bitch's scowl deepened, and her thoughts were angry. New members meant less money for her, which meant less she could do for the strays she found and housed. It was understandable, when you considered her priorities. "Fuck this, I'm taking the dogs for a walk. Angelica, Judas, come!" The dogs bounded down the stairs, barely missing Regent as he hopped off the bottom step and out of their way. Rachel clipped their leashes on and left.

"Maybe that's for the best," Grue said.

I nodded my avatar's head. Well, if Tattletale already knew I was a girl their age, I suppose there was no point in trying to shape my language to disguise it. "She's very intense, isn't she? I'd be nervous if I wasn't in this form."

 _Partial lie. Bitch definitely makes her nervous, even in her current form. Why? Projection is incorporeal, but a physical body was definitely present yesterday at the Boardwalk. A Stranger/Master. She's in the building, and Bitch's dogs can potentially find her._ Tattletale's smirk grew wider.

… Are you kidding me right now?

"Maybe you should come out, now that Bitch is gone. I swear that we'll be civil and you'll be free to go once we're done talking."

Brian turned to look at Tattletale, "He's here?"

"She, I think."

"Damn, you look badass!" Regent said as he swaggered up beside his two teammates. "I vote yes based purely on the cool factor."

Bitch had left my range with all three dogs in tow, and so I stood with my real body and approached the group. I, of course, had erased all evidence of my physical body from their senses as I did so. Sight and sound of my physical form and footfalls, any dust or trash that was disturbed by my passage, my footprints, everything. I had made one small oversight yesterday on the Boardwalk. Just one moment where I hadn't been prepared, and now Lisa was using it against me.

This time went a lot better. Lisa received no tells from my approach, and I stood beside my avatar. It was strange, having three Perspectives tell me that to my right was a creepy human shaped void in reality, while I myself saw nothing but 3 costumed supervillains staring at an empty space.

"I think it would be best to reveal yourself so we can talk face to face. I'll promise no hostility, as long as you show none yourself," Grue said, "Assuming Tattletale is correct in her guess that is."

Tattletale scoffed, "I'm right."

I gritted my teeth. This is not at all how I wanted it to go. I was getting into dangerous territory, revealing myself to Lisa. If Lisa figured out my true power and I couldn't get them on my side, things would go badly. For who, I wasn't sure yet. I needed them. And after meeting them, I could see myself liking them.

"Alright," I said, with my real voice. The three supervillains looked to a spot beside my avatar, opposite of where I actually stood.

OK, it wasn't my _real_ real voice. I made it emanate from empty air, but it was Taylor's voice nonetheless. My avatar collapsed into a singularity before vanishing, the warping of space around it lingering for just a few moments longer. Sue me, I liked the theatrics. Then I made a representation of myself, wearing a blank white mask that covered my full face in the empty spot that my voice had come from. The mask was porcelain smooth, with just the faintest caricature of human features. A slight bow of the lips, a weak featureless chin and high cheekbones, with holes for the eyes.

"That her?" Grue asked.

Tattletale considered the new avatar, before looking directly at where my real body stood. She already had a good enough read of my personality to call my bluff. "Close."

With an actual, audible huff of indignation that drew the attention of Grue and Regent, I made my avatar collapse and revealed my true self, with only an illusory domino mask to cover my features.

"There we go," Tattletale said, her stupid grin so big she was beginning to look like the Cheshire cat.

"Your power is really impressive," I said to her.

"Thanks. If I knew what yours was, I think I would say the same thing," she replied.

"You don't have a read on it?" Grue asked. He had been examining me critically, taking in my narrow frame and baggy sweatshirt. There had been a second as he considered my looks, along with curiosity what I would look like with more form fitting clothes. I blushed deeply at the attention. I, of course, erased the reddening of my cheeks and shifting stance from their reality.

"No. Gave me a headache trying to figure it out. I don't think we'll get answers anytime soon, unless mystery girl decides to spill?" I shook my head, "That's fine. What I've seen so far is more than enough to say it's a dead useful one."

Brian nodded, "I agree. The real question, though, is how you found us."

"I'm very good at information gathering," I said.

"In other words, you can see and hear through your projections," Lisa said. "You heard me give the cab driver the address and found us that way."

I nodded.

Regent whistled. "That's some high level shit." From his mind, I knew he was referring to the rare Master ability to sense via their minions.

"And why do you want to join the Undersiders? You recently became a cape, I take it? You want to be a supervillain?"

Tattletale's power answered the question for her instantly. _She doesn't want to be a bad guy._

Well lying was right out. I wasn't going to try it anyways, knowing exactly what Tattletale was capable of.

"No, but I don't want to be on the Wards either. Too much regulation and corruption."

There was a beat while Grue was silent, just long enough to show he was considering my answer. "The regulation part is obvious, and while I believe you about corruption, what exactly are you talking about?"

"Like I said, I'm very good at information gathering," I replied.

"She spied on them," Tattletale said at the same time, her smile disappearing. "That's a dangerous game you're playing."

"It was career research. I'm not going to be using it against them. I just won't be joining the Wards anytime soon. What I want is to work with an independent group that is cordial with the Protectorate. Something like New Wave, but more... edgy?"

"Like I said before, we're bad guys," Grue said.

"We can't exactly turn over a new leaf whenever we want," Tattletale said. "The stuff we've done is small, but we're already on the PRT's radar. Barely, but still. That's only going to get worse in the future."

Tattletale meant it to sound like they were unwilling, but I had heard the thoughts behind her words. _Coil won't let me leave._

"Besides, we've got a good thing going," Brian said. Ah, there it was. Brian's thoughts had flashed to getting custody of his little sister- something Coil had promised to help him with.

"There's no money in going legit. Boring as hell, too," Regent said.

I considered the thoughts of the three supervillains before me. Each had their reasons for committing crimes, for taking Coil's handouts. But each of those reasons had more than one solution. "There's a lot of benefit going legit, stuff you aren't considering. It's safer for one. Heroes have longer careers on average, and they don't retire to prison or the birdcage. Better long term prospects, better for families and keeping a life besides being a cape. There's fame and recognition for being a hero, if you make it big. And I think that we wouldn't have any trouble with money, either."

"And you think we'll make the big leagues?" Brian asked. "When we've got to compete with local capes like Dauntless and Armsmaster?"

"I'm not trying to form the next Triumvirate," I said, a bit defensive.

"Tell you what," Tattletale said. "You want to join the team, but you have some, ah, hangups with what sort of jobs we take. How about purely a supportive role, and only on jobs you have no moral objections to. We do a lot of work against other villains, after all." While she said this, Tattletale was mostly concerned about salvaging the situation and not letting her first real chance at freedom slip away.

That response surprised Grue. "You think this could work?" he asked her.

"I do," she said. "Our new friend here..." she paused and turned to me, "What should we call you?"

I had considered what my cape name should be the night before. Something intimidating, something that would fit with my surface level projection and stranger powers, "Specter."

"Spooky," Tattletale replied with a smirk.

"I think so," I replied. "Independent with attitude, remember?"

"Fair enough. So! I think our new friend Specter would be an amazing addition to the team. She's already said she doesn't want to go full hero, and I think we can work with that."

"Hmm." Brian wasn't convinced. He was cautious, methodical. He was thinking about all the unknowns I represented, things that he couldn't account for.

"My power has a large range. I can project my consciousness to anywhere in my range, with or without a manifestation like you saw. From there, I can look or listen while totally incorporeal, totally undetectable. In addition, I can make manifestations of pretty much anything I want."

 _Somewhat true, but she is holding back. Really? A power as awesome as that and she's still holding back? Fuck, why am I getting a headache so quickly?_ "Sounds useful," Tattletale said with a wince.

"So you're omniscient within your range?" Regent asked.

I frowned. He hit too close to the mark with his offhand exaggeration, "I have a limitation, in that I can only listen and manifest in the presence of other parahumans."

"So that's why you're so interested in joining up!" Tattletale said.

"Yes."

Grue had his chin in his hands in thought, then asked, "Can you show me how your power could be effective in a fight?"

I considered.

Just then, the door burst open, and Bitch was standing there. The three Undersiders turned to the door in surprise, "What the hell? I said no! Judas, Angelica, go!"

The dogs burst into the warehouse towards me, barking and snarling. I looked at them calmly.

"Bitch, call off the dogs!" Brian shouted.

"Fuck you!" Bitch retorted as the dogs continued their charge. Grue dropped his darkness, but they ran onwards. After only a second, they pounced on me and I went down with a shrill scream amid snarling and the snapping of teeth.

"Bitch! Rachel, call them off now!"

Just then, the scene vanished, and the four of us were left standing in Grue's darkness. The door to the warehouse was closed, and the Undersiders had gobsmacked expressions on their faces.

Grue's darkness vanished, and I stood up slowly, smirking with a grin worthy of Tattletale.

"That... wasn't real?" Grue asked.

"No," I said.

"I thought those dogs were going to kill you," Grue said.

"Seriously Specter," Regent added, "That was... a rather intense choice for a demonstration."

I crossed my arms, "He asked how I would use my power in a fight. Imitating capes, controlling the battlefield, making our enemies attack each other instead of attacking us. That's what I'd do in a fight."

Grue held up his hands, "I get it. It was a good choice. I thought Bitch had finally... well... if you're able to create those sort of scenarios with E88 or the ABB, they won't know what hit them. When you said you could create manifestations I didn't think... well- Tats?"

Tattletale was silent, but her expression was floored. In her mind, her power was repeating one word, over and over and over.

 _Anomaly._

 _Anomaly._

 _Anomaly._

Her headache had reached a crescendo, now a full blown migraine. Then she fainted.

"Lisa!" Grue shouted, as he bent over to check his fallen teammate.

...Oops?

****ADMINISTRATION****

I felt consciousness return to Tattletale slowly. Brian and Alec had allowed me to follow them up to their lair after Lisa had fainted, and I was currently sitting on her bedside, feeling slightly guilty I was the one who had caused her such intense pain. I wasn't supposed to be in here, of course. I had tweaked my other Perspectives to see me sit demurely on the couch, chatting with them as best as my awkwardness allowed. Lisa opened her eyes and blinked at me. Her power began to feed her information, but she reigned it in sharply whenever it touched on my powers.

"Stop trying to figure my power out, Lisa. It's only going to make your migraine worse."

"...How?"

"Did I stump you?" I asked with a slightly teasing tone. "Probably for the best. But look, like I said yesterday, I want to help. I know that Coil is threatening to kill you if you don't work for him, and that doesn't sit right with me."

Tattletale blinked again. She was working at full tilt to restrain her power to stop any further pain, but it appeared to be difficult for her to manage. It wasn't like she was incapable of not using her power. She absolutely could prevent herself from following certain trains of thought. It was that she was just so intensely curious that restraining herself was an extreme exercise in her willpower.

Seriously... she really needed to stop causing the bursts of pain that accompanied the use of her power, it was hurting her so much...

And she did. "That's... there," she said. "That's better." She looked at me, blinking a few times and said, "You why is it just you in here, and how did you know my name?"

I blushed in embarrassment about the slip up with her name. Luckily the illusory domino mask hid most of it, and I replied, "Good at information gathering, remember?"

"You're toeing the line with breaking the unwritten rules, you know."

I wasn't too familiar with those rules. I knew they existed from my observation of my various Perspectives in the past week, but the unwritten rules were pretty much ingrained into them, rather than surface level thoughts I picked up. "I'm not too familiar with them," I said. "I mean, I know they exist, but more than that?"

"It's pretty simple. Don't try to discover a cape's identity. If you do, don't use it against them. Don't take advantage of a cape who's been disabled. Don't fight to kill, either civilians or other capes."

"Ah, well..." I was pretty much a walking antithesis to the Rules, then.

"...Let me guess, Brian and Alec don't know I'm awake, do they?"

"Ermm... they are currently talking with me on the couch. But look, I want to help with Coil. I couldn't exactly talk about the topic downstairs."

"No, because I'm the only one who knows who the boss is. How do you know he threatened me? The only way someone would know that is if they were under his employment." Her thoughts betrayed her bluff.

"You know that's not true," I said. "Coil's power. That's the thing that is preventing you from escaping. I can find out what it is. I can likely counter it."

Lisa was silent for a second, coming to a decision, deciding if the risk was worth it. This was the first time in a long while where she had to make a decision with no helpful input from her power. She was thinking back to the warehouse floor, when her power made her collapse under the intense mental strain. I was an anomaly to her power. Something that made it error out. She hated it, and for the first time it really struck me how me how intensely Tattletale needed to _know._ It was, I realized, the driving force behind almost everything she did.

"I know you won't tell me your real power. There's something strange about it that I can't figure out. But will you at least tell me your name?" She was trying to grasp at something, anything concrete that she could latch onto.

After all I had done, it was a small request, and one I knew was crucial to establishing myself with Lisa. "My name is Taylor," I said.

She used a tiny sliver of her power to confirm it was true, and said, "You're telling the truth." She said it with such relief that I laughed.

"Nice to meet you, Lisa," I said.

Lisa put her head back in the pillow and closed her eyes, "This isn't fair, you know," she said. "People aren't supposed to get the drop on me. First Coil, now you."

I liked Lisa, a lot. Yes, I was in her head, I was experiencing everything she did and thought along with my own Perspective, not even mentioning Brian and Alec, but I was able to still respect them. I could, to a certain degree separate the vast sums of knowledge my power was processing, and the interaction that was happening with me, as Taylor. It was a relief, in some way, that I was able to still look at the Undersiders as people, and not just tools. After a week of considering Shadow Stalker nothing more than a Perspective, I had been worried that all capes would be reduced in a similar way.

Not so, apparently. I smiled at Lisa, "I don't intend to take advantage of my allies the way Coil does. And while we both got the drop on you, Coil and I are very dissimilar. You help me get started with him, a little assistance with planning and execution maybe, and I think I can get him out of your hair."

Lisa looked at me, her blonde hair framing narrowed eyes, "You seriously think you can take him."

"Yes."

"Will you tell me your power after this is over?"

I hesitated, "It depends. If we pull this off, and if we can agree on certain things afterwards, I think yes, maybe."

Tattletale nodded, and for the first time since she had woken up, a smirk appeared on her lips. As she activated her power and worked on giving me a starting point in looking for Coil, I considered what her grin meant. She wasn't consciously thinking about it, and so it was beyond my power's ability to decode. I was fairly certain of two things though. One, it wasn't something she chose to plaster on whenever she wanted. It was natural and honest. Second, it wasn't directed at me, but at Coil. What did I think that smile meant? 

_I know something you don't know_.

****ADMINISTRATION****

I held a cup of coffee in my hands as I strolled through downtown for the second time that day. Lisa had provided me with a number of possible spots that Coil could be operating out of. A few things were known about Coil. One was that he used a combination of expensive tinker tech weaponry and unpowered mercenaries. That meant he was loaded, as far as finances went. Secondly was that he operated out of downtown, and often clashed with E88 for territory. While those two facts were enough for Tattletale to narrow the search down to six or seven likely local businesses as fronts for his real operation, she couldn't actually verify any of her suspicions without risking Coil's power finding her out. I didn't have that problem. At least, I was fairly confident I didn't have that problem. I wouldn't know until I gained the Perspective.

And so it was that I strolled through downtown later that afternoon, weaving up and down the area a few blocks at a time, making sweeps with my power. The wintry chill that had hung around throughout the morning was partially beaten back by the sun, so I carefully took off the glove that covered my splinted finger. So far I hadn't found any new Perspectives by the name of Coil, and I had already cased three of the businesses that Lisa had suggested during my psychic trawl. Next up was Fortress Construction- one of the main contractors for Endbringer shelters.

I took a sip of my drink and smiled. Given the choice between coffee and tea, I would usually take the latter, but nothing could replace coffee as the go-to companion for braving the slushy winter streets of the Bay. It was heartier in a way that made it perfect for the job.

I paused with the drink to my lips as two Perspectives popped into existence, down below the Fortress Construction offices. No… wait. That wasn't right. One perspective was down in what looked to be a bona fide supervillain lair. The other Perspective was located elsewhere, but they were both definitely the same person. My first thought was that Coil was a duplicator of some sort, but once I realized that the second Perspective was stationed at the PRT offices, that theory went out the window. The PRT was way outside of my range at the moment. The shining glass and steel beacon that was the PRT headquarters was on the opposite side of downtown, easily a 10 minute's brisk walk. It was definitely Coil though. Even if I wasn't looking directly into his (their) minds, the fact that bona-fide-underground-lair-Coil was currently having a chat with none other than Lisa sealed the deal.

"Tomorrow, three o'clock is the pickup, so hitting it just before then would be best."

Boring-sitting-at-the-PRT Coil had two web browser tabs open: his Facebook profile which listed his name as Thomas Calvert, and schematics for a casino that bore a PRT watermark on the top right. Calvert picked up his phone and dialed a number.

Lisa responded over the phone, "And your mercs are still planning a diversion in ABB territory to keep cape heat away from us?"

"Of course, Tattletale. You'll succeed, as always. The Undersiders are much too important to risk on poorly planned jobs," Evil-supervillain-Coil said.

"And the matching for the job?"

"I'll double the take, as usual," Coil said without missing a beat.

"Yes, the usual," Calvert said. He had dialed a Chinese takeout, "Remember the extra orange chicken this time."

Tattletale's line was silent for a short while. Coil assumed she was conferring with the Undersiders. Apparently he was right because she spoke up, "Consider it done. The intel?"

"Yes sir, extra orange chicken," the woman at the Chinese takeout said.

Suddenly it clicked. Coil was modeling a separate timeline. That other timeline where he was sitting in his office at the PRT? It didn't exist. Or… as far as I could tell it didn't exist, as it seemed to be all in his head. So that made him some sort of precog, based on what Tattletale was saying he could do. He never lost. And apparently he never lost because he had 2 chances at his goals.

I knew powers were broken. Like, seriously universe-bendingly broken. But how in the world were we, barely evolved apes, able to divine the future like Coil was currently doing? What supernatural thing suddenly gave a man like Thomas Calvert the ability to unerringly choose the right path in the unlimited multiverse? With a start I realized that Coil also proved that there _was_ such a thing as a multiverse.

Damn. He had a really awesome power.

Suddenly the boring-office-Calvert timeline collapsed, and then a new timeline splintered from villain-Coil. In both Perspectives a man was allowed entrance after Coil ended the call with Tattletale. He was carrying afternoon drink service- something that Coil's Perspective helpfully supplied as being an everyday occurrence.

"Thank you, Jason," Coil said in both timelines.

Jason gave a short bow at the waist and turned to leave as Coil sipped at his tea in the modeled timeline, lifting back his featureless hood partially to do so. The scalding liquid burned other Coil's tongue.

"Jason?" Both Coils said.

The man turned around, fear etched on both his faces.

Scalded-tongue-Coil drew the pistol hidden under his desk and shot Jason four times, center mass. Then he stood and walked over to the gurgling man. Jason's eyes were wide in terror, life fading quickly as the wounds in his chested pulsed his blood away. "You. Ruined. My. tea!" One more gunshot punctuated each of Coil's words, and he stood over the corpse, panting for a bit.

Then the timeline collapsed, and Jason was standing in front of a Coil who hadn't taken a sip yet, "Jason, this feels too hot. Did you check the exact temperature, as instructed?"

"Ah. No," Jason replied, "I was running late and it, uh, slipped my mind."

"I see," Coil said. "Please take this back and redo it. You know how particular I am about these sorts of things." Jason quickly collected the too-hot cup from Coil, along with the rest of the tea service and left in a hurry.

What the hell? Coil had the ability to look at branching paths, and he uses it to fulfill his sick desires? Tattletale was under this man's thumb? Suddenly, I realized there was a huge problem. Coil could pretty much do anything he wanted without consequence, including torture and kill anyone he wanted for information. That included Lisa and the rest of the Undersiders. Coil used unpowered mercenaries, whom I had no direct power over. That put me in a very precarious position.

He had to go, and fast- otherwise my cover would be blown next time he got his chance to speak with an Undersider in person.

Soon, Coil was wrapped up his evening and headed home, leaving his modeled doppleganger at the base. As his thoughts focused on picking up his dinner and driving home, I locked his destination in my mind with a smirk. _Gotcha._

As I headed back home, I called Lisa with the burner phone she had provided me. "Tattletale? It's Specter. I found him, but we got to move tonight."

"That fast?"

"No choice. He has a way of finding out about me," I replied.

There was silence for a moment, and I realized that for the first time since I'd met her, I didn't know what Tattletale was thinking over the phone. It was nice, actually.

"OK, let's do it."

****ADMINISTRATION****

Thomas Calvert lived alone, which I expected. He was a total psycho, reveling in using his power to kill, hurt, and abuse without consequence. A man like that holding on to a marriage? Pretty much impossible, unless he was somehow keeping his spouse in line through devious means. Watching him sleep via my power was bizarre. I knew he was there, and he was definitely sleeping. His dreams of getting his hooks into the Mayor via blackmail, hostages, or violence, (he wasn't picky) made me shudder despite the thick coat I was wearing.

I was in something of an ethical dilemma surrounding Coil. The man was under the impression that he was actually living two timelines. I was 90%- err 75% sure that he was actually a precog, and the only version of Coil was the one currently sleeping in his house. Did that make his projected murdering and torturing less real? Should he be held accountable for something that amounted to thought crime, but was real to him?

Even though Coil was sleeping, he his projected self was currently awake in his base downtown, going over bank accounts and various investments. This was the moment of truth. I had considered the issue of trapping Coil. Assuming that he was simply a precog, my theory was that I could simply trick him into collapsing the model for his other self, and then we'd have him, more or less. If he wasn't a precog, well, then I shouldn't be able to affect his other life, and we'd leave without tipping him off.

"So, how are we doing this?" Tattletale asked.

We were currently ducked behind a fence across the street from Calvert's home, in the shadowy side yard of another house. Calvert lived in one of the nice suburbs on the outskirts of the Bay, capital of homeowners' associations, cookie cutter houses, and the same 10 models of car repeated in every driveway. It was unremarkable in every way, except for the fact that one of the city's shadow powers was currently sleeping, a wolf among rows and rows of sheep.

We both wore simple domino masks. Tattletale had a custom made one, padded and sculpted to chisel her face into something almost porcelain. I on the other hand, was making do with a simple store bought piece. I wasn't worried about capes recognizing me. I had walked right into the Undersiders lair completely unmasked and they had no idea what I had looked like. Here, in a sleepy neighborhood filled with normal people and smartphones? I needed a mask.

I held up a hand to quiet Tattletale and reached out with my power. I paid attention to Coil's other self, and made a small tweak to his reality. Coil frowned as he fixed his typo.

"Earth to Specter. You there, Specter?" I turned to Tattletale, and apparently the grin on my face was telling. "Good news?"

"Yes. I think we can take him without his powers interfering."

Tattletale nodded. Peeking at the house. "You're sure? If we screw this up, I'm a goner. Maybe you too."

I looked at Tattletale, "Go. He's sleeping." She took a breath and nodded, hefting a short, flat crowbar- a cat's paw, she had told me. She specifically _didn't_ check the pistol that was tucked discreetly into her waistband, hoping that she had hidden it from me. Then she strolled across the street, acting as if she belonged.

Of course, silent alarms began beeping as soon as she stepped through Coil's waist high white picket fence. I suppressed his perception of them in both timelines. Tattletale walked up to the window and stuck the cat's paw into where the door latched into the frame. With a little bit of her weight behind it, the flimsy latch broke and Tattletale climbed inside the house. Of course, that activated a very un-silent alarm, but that was expected and I had suppressed it from Coil's perception as well. Lisa climbed the stairs as neighbors' porch lights began flicking on.

 _Showtime_. In the projected timeline, Coil's office door burst open. One of Coil's faceless mercenaries pointed a pistol and shot Coil in the shoulder without hesitation. Coil went down with a cry, clutching at his shoulder, as the mercenary barricaded the door before moving over to coil. "Accord sends his regards," the Mercenary said, and withdrew a small syringe from a vest pocket.

As he stuck it into Coil's neck, Calvert's eyes shot open and he sat up in his bed. There was a cacophony of noise and flashing lights from the alarm that Tattletale had tripped, but to him, there was nothing but a quiet, dark bedroom. He immediately went over to his PC and turned it on, pulling up surveillance of his base and his finances.

Tattletale had reached the top of the steps and she saw Specter waiting for her outside Coil's bedroom door. "He's inside," I said.

In the other timeline, Coil was beginning to experience hallucinations. A demon was leaning over him, his face a twisted caricature of one of his mercenaries' facemasks. The filter that stood sideways slowly shrunk and expanded like a mouth speaking, "You will tell me about the Travellers." Coil didn't say anything, so the demon pressed a clawed foot into his injured shoulder. "Tell me about your plans for them." He didn't respond.

Specter held up a hand as Lisa was about to open the bedroom door. "Wait," I said. This was taking slightly longer than I expected, as Coil was hesitant to collapse that timeline. With a quick check into Calvert's mind I had my answer. He was fishing for information about why Accord would attack.

Two can play at that game, I suppose. The demon's face twisted and warped, and Coil's vision darkened everything else out. "You will tell me what I want to know, or you will die." Still nothing. Finally, the demon produced his pistol, pointed it directly between Coil's eyes, and pulled the trigger. With a sharp _bang!_ Everything in that timeline went dark and there was pain.

Calvert collapsed the timeline and immediately split it again. "Go," I said to Tattletale.

She opened the door just as Calvert bowled her over and ran into the hallway, in full panic mode. I could have crippled him with pain, but I didn't want to go that far quite yet. There was something different to me about using it against the 'real' one, versus a mental model.

Calvert stumbled down his carpeted steps, socks underneath ironed and creased slacks, slipping as he did so. He jumped the last few steps, grabbed a gun from a side table in the hall, and collapsed the bedroom timeline as he had successfully escaped Tattletale. He split the timeline once more, and I began my work. The alternate Calvert went into the kitchen, where one of his mercenaries was waiting for him with a laser rifle. A burst of red light later and Coil collapsed that timeline. His other selves were shut down as quickly as the first. To Calvert, a swarm of mercenaries and enemies was descending upon him from all directions. Tattletale with her pistol from the stairs, mercenaries with laser rifles from the kitchen and living room. Coil attempted to dodge the shots, but wasn't willing to dedicate a timeline to try and manipulate the outcomes, since he had one timeline where he continued on unmolested.

Through the use of imaginary mercenaries, laser rifles, and projected realities I forced Calvert out the front door. With my real eyes I saw a sharply dressed and armed man burst from the house. His thoughts were wild, panicked. He hadn't been this helpless since he had bought his powers.

 _Wait, what?_ I shook my head to clear it and regain focus on the situation. _Parse the information later, Taylor._

In a way, I felt bad for him. His powers were so similar to mine. They were about controlling outcomes, determining reality. Both were tools used to know exactly what was needed in a given situation. Calvert had spent years building up his base of power, and a single cape with powers that trumped his would take him down.

He ran forward, leaping down the two steps that led to his door, and his face met my fist in midair. My left hand wrapped around the slide of his pistol and racked it backwards to extract the chambered round. I slid my thumb just so to active the slide catch, which locked the pistol open and unusable.

Calvert's face was thrown back violently by my fist while his feet continued forward. He went down hard, his back and skull hitting the pavement, dazing him. The pistol clicked as he instinctively pulled the trigger, but it didn't fire. I stripped the weapon from him easily, twisting it just so, and stashed it in a pocket. I permitted him to see my Specter avatar as I crouched over him.

Tattletale burst from the door just then, winded and worried that she had let the man get away. She calmed as she assessed the situation, however, and sauntered over to her former boss.

"You've made a big mistake, Tattletale," Calvert said. "You broke the rules. That won't stand."

Tattletale shrugged. "I see them more as a cautionary tale to not let things go too far." She looked down at Calvert, "You took things too far when you recruited me at gunpoint."

Coil split the timelines again, trying to make a break for it in the other, while he collected a breath on the ground. I drew my pistol and shot coil in the leg as he attempted to escape. That timeline collapsed, "Naughty naughty. Stop trying to escape." I said, Specter's voice distorted and deep, like it was coming from the void that made up my body.

That got is attention. He looked to me, "How? What is your power? Changer, Breaker?"

"Not important," Tattletale said. "What is important is the passwords to your finances."

I had to give Calvert credit. He was amused at Tattletale's boldness in asking such a question. He chuckled as the passwords flashed through the front of his mind. Bank accounts, passphrases, details of two-step authentications he had set up, drop locations, contacts. It was all there, as the man laughed at Tattletale's naiveté.

"Come now Coil," you know what my power is. It's only a matter of time before I find out everything."

The complete picture was shaping up quickly as I continued focusing on Calvert's thoughts.

"You may get what you need, if you had the time," Calvert responded, "But the fact is you don't have time. I've got people on the way. Look Tattletale," he looked at me, but I offered no name as I continued to skim his memories. I wanted to know more about where he got his powers. He didn't know much. Hardly anything as a matter of fact. All I got was that he was able to pick the general theme and abilities of his power, spent a fortune in getting it, and owed the shadowy organization one more favor.

Calvert had continued talking, "I'm a forgiving person. You gave it your best shot and got a lot farther than I expected. That is talent, and I appreciate talent. You won't get access to my resources, and I've got contingency plans in place to destroy my assets upon my death, Undersiders included." He didn't of course, it was a lie. A man like Calvert never planned what would happen after his death, only on preventing it. "I'm willing to forgive and forget, and buy your loyalty the right way this time. No guns. Just a deal that makes everyone happy. That includes you… and your friend."

I actually cringed at the thoughts of revenge running through Calvert's head. Torture and rape were a prominent part of his fantasies, but they only scratched the surface. He conjured up months of Tattletale being locked in a room, hands and feet tied and her helpless. Beatings, days without food or water, torture, the fantasies went on… and on…

Apparently Tattletale saw my reaction and had a power-driven epiphany. "You're a fucking telepath," she blurted. My flinch confirmed it for her, "Oh my god…"

Coil struck in that moment of distraction, lunging for the gun I had trained on him. I saw it coming, of course. I had complete awareness of all three actors in this little play. Doing what I did when Calvert burst through his front door? It was easy, like smacking my fist into my other palm. The gun? It was like I had the gun in my own two hands when I disabled it. So when Calvert lunged for my pistol, I simply stepped out of the way with all the grace and fluidity of a dancer. His hand missed by an inch.

A shark _crack!_ filled the night as Tattletale's gun fired, and Calvert slumped over with a hole in his head.

It was quiet after that. I knew that the neighbors were awake, and at least one of them had called the police, but they didn't dare open their doors or make a sound. The lights that had flickered on after the alarm had been set off were dead now, their owners switching them off in fear. For the first time I really took in the night. It was foggy, and slightly wet. The street lights cast an orange glare through the mist, and at our feet, a dead man bled.

Tattletale let out a shaky breath. "We… we need to go. Still ten minutes until the police arrive, but I didn't get to talk to him long enough…"

"I have the passwords," I replied.

"Right, psychic. I forgot." Tattletale tore her eyes away from Calvert, "That's supposed to be my gig, you know?"

"I know." I said, pulling her away and back into the house, "Now do your thing."

The asset transfer happened quickly after that. I relayed the passwords to Tattletale as she needed them, and we breezed through his liquid holdings. They were transferred into a separate account Tattletale had created for this specific purpose with a parahuman known as the Number Man.

Once that was done she unplugged the laptop from its docking station and tucked it under her arm, "I can do the rest later."

I nodded, "Let's go, then."

We left the house, back out into the misty night and glaring orange streetlights. I stepped around Calvert's body, consciously not looking it. Tattletale had killed him in the heat of the moment. Calvert had made a gambit while he was at the wrong end of two guns, and failed.

Earlier in the day Lisa and I hadn't talked about what would happen with Coil. We hadn't discussed the ultimate fate of the man who had taken away her freedom and was planning on doing much worse. I don't think we could have if we tried.

Lisa stashed the laptop in my backpack and we discarded our domino masks in a secluded alley before boarding the bus. We rode through the city and before long a pair of police cars zipped past in the opposite direction, lights flashing and sirens blaring. Neither of us said anything, and we hopped off after twenty more minutes. The walk back to the lair was uneventful, and neither of us said anything. I don't think we needed to.

Lisa stopped and turned to me as we approached the Redmond Welding building, "I guess this is it. We're going to start something completely new here."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"You… you can figure out pretty much anything, can't you? You could put yourself within a few blocks of the Triumvirate, Dragon, or one of the other big players and learn… well… everything."

Thinking back to what I had gleaned from Calvert. Where his powers had come from. I had also gained a name from his memories. Cauldron. I nodded.

Lisa's eyes widened at that. Another read. Damn, her power was good. "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful partnership."

My thoughts returned to the misty street we had left behind, "I hope so too."


	3. Perception 3

Lisa dropped me off a block away from my house. We hadn't stayed long at the lair and didn't go in. Instead, she told me to stop by after school, and she would spend the morning breaking the news gently to the team. After that, we would have real introductions. That made me anxious. Introductions. Socializing. These were not things I had much experience with anymore. But it was a good thing, I knew. I could get through it.

It was three past midnight, and I had school tomorrow. Dad wasn't awake, and I successfully snuck back into my bedroom. The house was quiet, and I was tired…

I was trying to sleep, rolling around fitfully. I was tired… exhausted, actually, but apparently too wired to sleep. Moonlight poured through the window in straight lines. The curtains were still and bright, letting the moonbeams pass through, making them glow. I rolled over, shutting my eyes tightly. I needed the dark, and the stupid glowing curtains were making the room brighter, not darker.

" _Murderer."_

I sat up, looking around for the source of the sound, but saw nothing. It was dark, except for the spill of moonlight that cut its way across my floor and the red numbering of my alarm clock. Two-thirty, it said.

"Who's there?" I whispered. There was no response. Did I imagine that voice?

I had no other Perspectives, so there weren't any capes in the area. A normal human wouldn't have any idea what had happened. I shook my head. It was just the exhaustion and adrenaline. That's it.

I had just laid my head back down on the pillow when I heard it again. " _Mur…der…"_

That time I flipped the covers off my bed and took the pistol I had stashed under the mattress. The door was shut tight, and I had a small room with nowhere to hide. Only a small closet that someone could fit in… barely. It was cracked open, and so I approached it, weapon pointed and ready. I absently thought that I hadn't even handled a gun before tonight, but already I seemed to be proficient at it.

I creeped toward the closet door and reached out for the handle. Behind, and in the slit of darkness I could hear a thump, then drip. Thump, drip. All at once I flung it open and stepped back quickly, wrapping my left hand around my right in the appropriate grip, and raised the pistol fully.

"Murdered!" Calvert yelled from the floor of my closet. His right hand pressed against his stomach as dark red blood gushed out in time with his beating heart. Thump, drip. His other hand, he pointed at me, "MurderaaaaAHH!"

I squeezed the trigger and fired, hitting him in the face and shattering his nose. "You. Ruined. My. Sleep!" With each word, I fired again, and again, and again.

 _bang! Bang! BANG! beep! Beep! BEEP!_

****ADMINISTRATION****

I sat up in bed to the noise of my alarm clock blinking six o'clock, screaming like the Simurgh herself. The closet door was closed. Reaching under my mattress, my fingertips brushed against the cold steel of my pistol. The curtains on the window hung a dull green and the morning outside was a colorless pre-dawn gray.

A dream. It was just a dream.

Dad came bursting into the bedroom at the noise, "Taylor!"

Luckily I had pulled away from under the mattress, and I held the sheets up to my neck. I was dressed in a t-shirt and shorts because of the cold nights, but it was the principle of the matter. "Dad!"

He stopped short after seeing nothing was wrong, "Taylor... you were screaming. Are you OK?"

I gave him a smile and a nod, knowing it looked like the fake it was. "Yeah, just a crazy dream." After a significant look, Dad got the hint and closed the door. I let out a breath and rested against the headboard for a moment before flipping the covers off. Forget the dream, I told myself. I had things to do.

****ADMINISTRATION****

The bus ride was normal, except for the fact I could barely keep my eyes open. After the third time I caught myself nodding off, I sat up straight and looked out the window, where the bright morning sun was just beginning to shine. _The buildings look so different during the day_ , I thought as I watched the rundown buildings of the outer docks flash by. The paint was faded and chipped, and the planters set in between the sidewalks and street were trodden down into dirt, occasionally holding the stump of a cut down tree. The fog had long since burned away under the sun's glare, leaving the docks stark and exposed. Everything seemed more… honest this way.

School now had a new normal. The three bitches ignored me, and their second tier followers had gotten the hint that messing with me was no longer a method to gain favor. So I was exhausted, looked terrible, and ignored by pretty much everyone. Well, almost everyone.

It must've been the lack of sleep, because I had stopped paying attention at one point and allowed my path to brush up against Shadow Stalker and Emma as they moved to their first class of the day. Entering a bathroom, my second Perspective barely caught a flash of me entering. Fortunately, Shadow Stalker ignored my presence and continued on with nothing more than a slight scowl.

"Soph, I'll be right back," Emma said to Shadow Stalker. I watched via my second Perspective as Emma broke off from her circle of followers and doubled back, towards me. Shadow Stalker just shrugged and continued into the classroom, and I lost awareness of my one-time friend. But I knew where she was going.

 _Screw this._

I had just finished washing my hands when Emma walked into the bathroom. It was just the two of us, with everyone else heading towards class. The tardy bell rang, and for some reason it sounded to me like it was ringing in the beginning of a boxing match.

"Look who it is," Emma said, "The nobody. You've been making yourself hard to find recently."

I looked her in the eye, not caring that I looked like crap. "What do you want?"

"Now, Taylor, no need to be like that. I'm just concerned about you. You aren't looking well. Maybe you're coming down with something serious?"

I just rolled my eyes. "Don't waste my time, Emma. There's no one else to show off to. Sophia isn't here to see how strong you are. Let's talk about something real, instead. Something important. Tell me truthfully, what happened? Why did you just throw away our friendship?" This wasn't me. Taylor wouldn't say that. What was I doing?

Emma just laughed. To someone who didn't know her well it sounded light, almost like ornaments on a Christmas tree. But to my experienced ears, there was a cruelty there, "Throw it away? That makes it sound like it was worth something in the first place. You're worthless, Taylor. That's all there is to it."

That should've hurt. We had been friends for so long. For her to be able to say it, to believe it, should have still hurt. But for some reason I didn't care anymore. I sunk into the new apathy that was growing within me. There was a cold calculation running through my thoughts now.

I shook my head. I had heard this over and over. I had been in Sophia's head for the past week. I knew that wasn't really it. Emma… she had something to prove with me. She was the reason the Bitches harassed me. I just shook my head at her, mustering a tired smile, "That's not true. We were friends for years. It was worth a lot, to both of us. Now come on, seriously, why did you buy into Sophia's way of looking at things? You know it's total bullshit, right? This whole predator and prey thing? It's so flawed I don't even know where to start."

"You don't know what the hell you're talking about Hebert. That's something a friendless loser would say." Some of her façade broke. Good. My tired smile grew a little bit, my wide mouth expressive and sharp. It was Lisa's smile.

"No, it's what a normal, sane person would say. Sophia isn't stable, and apparently you aren't either. What was it?" I was trying desperately to leverage my Perspective, digging deep into their history. Trying to piece together the scraps of Shadow Stalker's thoughts into a more cohesive whole. Her mind wasn't giving me details though. I was simply going over what I had gleaned during the past week. _Something_ bad had happened to Emma. Something Shadow Stalker was involved in and respected her for. But that was all I knew.

"Go fuck yourself, Hebert. You want to know the real reason? Fine. It's because you were a worthless friend. You wasted years of my life, and so you owe me." Emma was pissed now.

I tilted my head. "No, that's still not it. Look at yourself, Emma. You're obsessed with me. For some reason you can't let it go. You know who else acts like that? Insane people. Schizophrenics, people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, people in strait jackets and white padded rooms. The only difference is that you can hide it, barely. Face it, there's something wrong with your head."

Before I could react, Emma slapped me across the face, hard. My vision flashed red from the impact, and my mind went blank with shock. I must have looked like a gaping fish, because Emma began to smile, the cracks in her veneer vanishing when she got her fix.

My hand went to my burning cheek, and Emma's smile widened even further. "See, Emma, that's what I mean. You hit me, and now you're feeling validated. It's like a drug. You're addicted. There's something wrong with you."

I brushed past Emma the smirk back in place, and surprisingly, she let me go. I didn't look back to see her expression. I didn't want to. For the first time since the bullying began, I realized I didn't care. I had murdered a man last night. It was for the right reasons. He was evil to the core, trying to control my new… my only… sort-of friend. Emma and her issues were something small now.

If I had tried to confront her before, it wouldn't have worked. Even if I had said the exact same words, I knew that Emma would be able to see through it. Back then I wouldn't have meant it. It would have been a lie. Now? Every word I had spoken to her was genuine and she could tell.

The cold calculation had taken me over, shown me something I could never have seen before. It was Purpose, distilled. I was done. I simply didn't care about the touched-in-the-head girl still standing in the bathroom. There was so much more to this wide world than lowering myself to the level of someone like Emma. There was so much more now, and I was going to learn exactly what was out there.

The rest of the day went well, all things considered. Emma didn't mention her encounter to Sophia. Soon school was out, and I caught a bus to the Undersider's lair. I didn't have a mask, but that was fine. Four new perspectives popped up as I approached the lair.

The Undersiders were lounging around their loft, all relaxed and out of costume. Brian was sitting at the kitchen table filling out some sort of government paperwork. Rachel was petting her dogs and watching videos on YouTube. Alec and Lisa were playing video games, a shooting game to be precise, with Alec getting his teeth kicked in as Tattletale used her power to great effect. I watched the screen from two perspectives as Tattletale would consistently pick him off through a corner or particularly thin wall. Alec, for his part, was taking the beating in stride, not concerning himself that he was getting thoroughly thrashed. In fact, he was completely nonplussed at the loss. Strange. I hadn't really focused all that closely on his internal dialogue and emotions, but he was rather muted compared to the others.

Lisa suddenly put down her controller and announced that Specter was here. Once again I was reminded at how completely broken her powers were. It was a combination of knowing exactly what the bus schedules were like, doing a quick lookup of when Winslow's school day ended. And inferring how fast I would walk and if I would take any detours, based on what she knew of my personality. Then she thought to me via her Perspective. _Come on up, mind reader. If you're there that is. Gah, hopefully I didn't mess up the timing. That would be embarrassing._ Her stream of consciousness continued on as the rest of the Undersiders wrangled themselves together, more or less. Yep... Lisa, ladies and gentlemen.

Showtime. With a deep breath, I entered the bottom floor of the lair with a creak of hinges, and the dogs started barking. Rachel immediately silenced them with a sharp command, but she was dangerously tense.

Lisa met me at the bottom of the spiral staircase. "Hello again. So everything is looking good. The ah, accounting went well, and I've already told the rest of the gang that we're getting raises, thanks to Specter." I would have been suspicious with the way Lisa had phrased what we agreed on yesterday even without the telepathy, but her thoughts made any sort of inference unnecessary. She hadn't told them Coil was out of the picture yet.

"Lisa!"

"I know, Taylor, I know! I just… well. I sort of wanted backup when I broke the news? Grue is going to be the hardest to convince because-"

"Aisha."

Lisa gaped like a fish for a second, then closed her mouth with a click. Then she muttered, "That's right, how could I forget? OK, well come on up. They're waiting, as I'm sure you know."

I didn't enforce any changes on my four Perspectives and I got a strange look at myself as I came up the stairs behind Lisa. For a strange, surreal second, it felt like I was a supermodel making her first appearance, with cameras capturing every angle of me.

Grue was the first to talk, "Welcome back… er…"

"Taylor," Lisa supplied helpfully.

"Taylor," Grue repeated. "I'm glad to hear Lisa say you decided to come around. You'll be a great addition to the team." He thought I had decided to integrate with the Undersiders as a villain. The intention was loud and clear in his mind. My gaze snapped to Lisa and I could see my scowl in exquisite detail. Brian turned to look at Lisa as well. "Lisa?"

"Ah, well guys… about that. Maybe we should all sit down?"

Brian folded his arms, "What's going on Lisa?"

"First off, I want to say that everything I said this morning is totally true. New teammate, big raises, more freedom in jobs. What I may have failed to mention is why we are getting all the new perks."

"You said it was because the Boss totally floored once he found out what Specter's powers were," Brian said. God damn it Lisa.

"Knew this was a bad idea," Rachel growled.

"Yes I did say that," Lisa said. "That last part may have been a bit unclear."

I could feel tensions rising, specifically in Rachel and Brian. Alec was… amused. Like, seriously amused. Unable to keep the grin off his beautiful stupid face, amused. I wanted to say something, but I hesitated. Yesterday I had been Specter, the ghostly parahuman. It was a role. Now, I was just Taylor, vulnerable to the Undersiders. Should I say something? Was it my place? I opened my mouth and took a breath, but was interrupted.

"Shut up," Rachel growled, addressing me.

"Alright, alright just cool down," Lisa said, getting the same read from the room I had. "The boss broke the rules. He recruited me at gunpoint in my civilian identity. Would've killed me if I refused." She paused, then continued on, "We, ah, are no longer connected with the boss."

That got Brian's attention. His thoughts jumped immediately to Aisha as he rounded on his teammate, "WHAT?"

Lisa backed away with her hands in front of her, "Its fine, its fine! Your arrangement is totally fine. I took care of it!"

Brian stood tall and took a deep breath, "Explain, now."

Everyone was quiet, and tensions were strung tight. I knew that if Lisa didn't play the tune properly, it would snap. I was in danger... real danger. Rachel was glaring at me, blaming me for the sudden shift in status quo. I understood too. She had a good thing going, comparatively. Being a member of the Undersiders had given her stability far beyond anything else she'd had since she had triggered. My appearance threatened to tear that away from her.

"It's like this. We are now independent, and extremely wealthy. The boss is out of the picture, and I was able to acquire most of his liquid assets. I've already invested in some local businesses who be more than happy to, y'know, hire you," she said, air-quoting the last part.

"You stole from the boss? The guy you've said is somehow making our jobs successful from behind the scene? The thinker who out-thought you?"

"Yeah, Lisa," Alec said, "I try to steer clear of decision making and responsibility in general, but that seems like a pretty dumb move."

"He broke the _rules_ ," Lisa said with significance. "He won't come after us. Can't, actually."

"And that means what, exactly? Why can't he come after us?" Brian hadn't budged an inch since he took up his Mr. Clean wide-footed, crossed arm stance, but I felt the concern and fear oozing from his Perspective.

"Er well, it's best you don't know. Plausible deniability and all that. Taylor and I took care of it. We're free. There's no chance that the boss will come after us. Zero percent." Lisa gave Brian a winning smile and thumbs up to drive the point home. A double-handed thumbs up, as a matter of fact. And a smile that should have given off a glint of incisor.

"New girl offed the boss?" Regent asked. I flinched guiltily at the offhand comment before I could stop myself. He was joking and hadn't seriously thought I killed Coil. But I hadn't.

Lisa shot me a look before responding, "No, of course she didn't. Look, the boss is out of the picture. He has no more money, no support, and certainly won't be coming back for revenge in the future. His mercenaries have already realized they won't be getting any more pay, or they will soon, and simply leave. I couldn't tell you guys before, but he was seriously bad news. Now we're in a spot with more freedom and money, and safer, even though you guys didn't know about the danger." 

Brian was still quiet, with his arms folded, staring balefully at Lisa. Finally he broke away and looked at me, "And you were a part of this?"

I cringed a little, shrinking back from the attention, and the sudden reminder of what had happened the night before. I just nodded.

"Taylor was the one who made it all happen," Lisa said, her eyes on me. "We're going to get to new heights with her on the team."

My mind was blank. I could feel the thoughts of the capes around me. The bad guys, but ones who were redeemable. As they all looked at me, waiting to see if I would say anything, I shrank into myself even more. Quickly in his mind, I could feel Brian's doubt at Lisa's proclamation grow, Rachel scoffed audibly, so her doubt was made clear even without the Perspective. Alec hummed playfully as he looked at me, head tilted upward slightly.

"And in related news," Tattletale said. "I think it's about time we go legitimate! We'll need to vote on it of course, but I think this is the perfect opportunity to get out of this low brow crime."

"Aww..." Alec said.

I blinked at the proclamation. There was certainly nothing in her mind that hinted she would be actively pushing for rogue status for the Undersiders, either from last night, or since she had been a Perspective this morning. The vibe I had gotten from her was more along the lines of-

"Mostly, of course," Lisa said flashed smile. "After all, a cape team with more money than they know what to do with will have all sorts of interests, some legal, some not so much. And we'll still need to build up rep- a lot of it."

"Yesss!" Regent said, pumping his fist in the air.

****ADMINISTRATION****

In the end, the vote was unanimous. Both to go 'legit' and for me to join the team as a full member. I was... torn about the way things had gone. While we weren't going to be doing anything violent or morally abhorrent, the whiteboard that Lisa had carefully wheeled out of her room had hinted at other activities that would certainly fall under the realm of white collar crime. Indeed, the stick figure doodled in the corner holding a wad of cash left little doubt as to what Lisa's 5-year plan consisted of. In a way, it felt like we were replacing Coil more than anything else.

As the dust settled with a small cheer from Lisa, three of my new teammates came over to congratulate me and welcome me to the team. Bitch simply began tending to her dogs, but her Perspective showed that she was surprisingly content with the situation. More money, more security, more ability to help her dogs. For her it was as simple as that.

Brian was there first, and he stuck out his hand. I hesitated, and the hesitation bothered me. _It's just a stupid handshake, Taylor. What's the worst that could happen?_ "This happened rather suddenly, but thank you for helping out Lisa. I didn't realize that she was in such a rough spot." I mustered my courage and grasped Brian's hand.

 _Nullification._

With a yelp I released Brian's hand as I felt an electric shock run through my arm. My tailbone hit the floor and I laid back with a groan. There was a clacking of claws, and a snuffling huff of breath as Angelica pattered over. She sniffed my hair for a bit, then licked my face.

"Taylor, are you alright?"

Brian was leaning over me with a concerned look. His brown eyes were wide and expressive, and I blushed, embarrassed and flustered. "Yes, I'm fine. Just... I dunno."

Brian offered me a hand again to help me up, and I forced myself to take it.

 _Nullification. Adult Primary. Warrior._

What the hell, power?

There was no electric shock this time, but in that moment of physical contact I felt like I understood Brian's power. No... not that I understood Brian's power. More like I _knew_ his power. Personally knew... _Nullification_?

I needed to think on this. But first, I had to give an explanation. Everyone was looking at me now. Brian was concerned at why I had flinched away from him, Bitch was considering how Angelica had shown me kindness, Regent was amused, but also rightly considering if this was a new aspect of my power, and Lisa was once again going into overdrive. "Sorry, I just... I... well..." I looked at Brian. "Is your power still working?"

Brian's stomach twisted as he processed my words, and I grimaced. Real smooth Taylor. Then pure nullification began to roll off Brian's form and flood the lower half of the room, covering everything up to my shins, and up to Angelica's shoulders. "Seems to be."

I let out a breath I was holding. "OK. Sorry. I just... well when we shook hands... did you know your power can block radiation?"

Brian was still for a second, but he glanced at Lisa. "I suspected. Lisa told me that was probably the case." Of course Lisa would have drawn that conclusion.

"OK. Because it will. Heat, light, sound. Pretty much any sort of energy, actually."

"Hey," Alec shouted suddenly, "When I voted, I thought we were getting some bad ass ghost girl. I didn't sign up for Lisa 2.0! Ow!"

"Don't be rude," Lisa chided as Alec rubbed the back of his head.

For the first time, I cracked a little smile. Alec, Lisa, Brian, even Rachel. They were all just kids, like me. Sometimes serious, sometimes goofy, and always awkward. Most of all, as I felt their thoughts ebb and flow, brushing against my consciousness, they were just themselves. This was something I could do.

I turned my smile on Alec. "Sorry to disappoint. I can make Specter hang around instead. He's really good at hovering right over you while you sleep, popping into the mirror behind you when you're brushing your teeth..." I left the rest hanging.

Alec's eyes widened as he realized the implication. "Ah, no, that's OK. I'd rather not experience a literal haunting, thanks."

With a slight tweak of his Perspective, I replaced my eyes with the depths of the Milky Way, two small windows into infinity. "You sure?"

"Yep!" he yelped, "I'm definitely sure!"

I canceled the illusion and shrugged. "OK then."

"You've got an unusual mix of powers, Taylor," Brian observed. "Projections and some sort of touch based Thinker power, right? Normally capes have exact one power, or multiple powers with a clear synergy. I'm not seeing how yours are related."

"Well, I don't know what this new one is, exactly." I looked to Lisa, "Mind if I try on you?"

Lisa came over, and I took her hand.

 _Negotiator. Adolescent Primary. Warrior._

The telltale jolt was there, but I realized that it wasn't actually something physical. Just like my powers, it was simply a sensation, and nothing I physically reacted to. Just like Brian, I came to _know_ Negotiator. It was a strange sensation that I was struggling to put into words, what it meant to know a super power. It was like... knowing how to count to a hundred, or recite the alphabet. The knowledge was so complete and ingrained, it didn't even feel like it was something I remembered. It was just a part of my worldview.

"So?" Lisa was looking at me with a curious expression.

I gave a shaky laugh and broke the handshake. My hand went to my head, and then through my curly hair. "I just... wow." I looked over to Lisa's whiteboard and the steps she had laid out for the Undersiders to become the dominant economic player in the city. "I think we're in good hands with you at the helm the business side of things."

"Me next!" Alec said, practically jumping between Lisa and I. Taking his hand, I make sure to not let the jolt of knowledge and sensation knock me over.

 _Dominator. Juvenile Secondary. Warrior._

I blinked. That was... strange. Alec's power was somehow younger and less experienced than both Lisa and Brian's. I knew that he had a bad past, and that he didn't like his family, but he hadn't actively though about his past enough for me to glean the full story. His power must be related to that. One of both of his parents must have also been parahumans. Not wanting to bring up bad memories, I said, "Very impressive."

The rest of the afternoon was spent hanging out and getting to know the rest of the Undersiders a bit better. Rachel left, intent on running errands for her kennel. Shortly after that Lisa wheeled the whiteboard back into her room, intent on pushing her high level plans forward. I wasn't big on games and Brian said he was planning on heading back to his apartment, so I thought it was time to go.

As I started down the spiral staircase, I noted the pistol laying innocently on the table next to the opening. How funny, not 24 hours ago, I would've been unnerved by the presence of a gun. But now, not only was I desensitized to them, I had actually used one. Was it possible to have a perspective change so much in a single day? I wanted to say no, but here I was, a sixteen-year-old girl with superpowers who had taken down a particularly twisted villain on her first unofficial night out. My stomach twisted as I remembered what I had been able to forget while I met and joined the Undersiders.

"Hey, Taylor!" Lisa was leaning over the railing, looking down at me just before my head dropped down below the floor. "You'll be needing this."

She tossed me a small object, a cell phone I saw. I had thrown away the one I used yesterday at Lisa's instructions.

"Oh... well..."

"Look, I know you don't like them, but its needed." Once again I was amazed at how quickly Lisa read my tells and came to the right conclusion. "That one is for long term use. Only use it to call one of us. The numbers are programmed in. Anything else, use a burner. Consider it Specter's cell. Not Taylor's. For official business and all that."

It made sense. The team needed a way to get in touch with me. Lisa's whiteboard had been full of planned proactive moves, predicted fallout, and expanding interests. A cell phone would be just the beginning of the changes in my life. With a breath, I nodded.

"Good. Things are going to heat up once everyone realizes Coil's out of the picture. We'll need to move quickly and announce our intentions to the Protectorate and PRT, then proceed to kick some Nazi and ABB ass to show everyone we're serious." She paused and gave me a little smirk, eyes bright. "It's gonna be fun."

****ADMINISTRATION****

The next morning I woke up exhausted. Another nightmare had struck, making me unable to sleep for the majority of the night. I stumbled down the steps into the kitchen and saw Dad eating a bowl of cereal, newspaper unfolded before him.

He did a legitimate double take when he saw me and said, "Are you feeling OK? You look..." He waved his hand to explain the rest.

"I look awful, I know," I replied. How else would a person look when they had to revisit someone's brains spraying out of their skull two nights in a row?

"What's wrong? Are you sick? Do you need to go to the doctor?"

"I- no. I just couldn't sleep last night. I'm really really tired."

Dad folded his newspaper and set it on the table, taking my appearance in fully, "It is school, Taylor? You promised you would speak up if you had any more trouble."

"No, school is fine," I said. And it was, mostly. "I just- can I stay home? Just for today?"

Dad held my gaze for a moment longer, then relented, "Sure, of course you can."

****ADMINISTRATION****

I texted Lisa shortly after my Dad left and made the trip over to the lair.

"Hey," Lisa called out to me from her door once I topped the spiral stair. "Get over here and check out phase one of Operation Bwnage."

I blinked, "Operation what?"

"Bwnage. Its a mix of-"

"Bay and Ownage I know. Who came up with _that_?"

"It's cool and it fits!" Alec shouted over his shoulder, not tearing his eyes away from the TV in the main area.

Lisa just shrugged and ushered me inside her room. "Coming up with names for things keeps him happy." She shut her door and said, "So! It's fortunate you're here. You can help me contract Faultline's crew."

"We're hiring Faultline's crew?"

"Yup! On a semi-permanent, non-competing basis."

I looked at Lisa's board where Operation Bwnage was broken out into simple steps:

Hire Faultline's Crew

Eradicate Merchants

Establish Fiefdom

Defend Fiefdom to build rep

The steps continued on, including small tasks such as ' _Negotiate with PRT/Protectorate for Rogue Status'_ and ' _Cause Gang War between ABB and E88'._

"Why do you look so surprised?" Lisa asked, "I thought you would know about the plan as soon as you got off the bus."

"I've been suppressing the whole mind reading thing with you guys. I don't like doing it to friends."

"You can do that?" Lisa asked, surprised.

I nodded, "It makes you and the rest a lot more... Well it makes..."

"Makes us not seem so much like puppets? That's so sweet!"

I ducked my head in embarrassment, "Yeah."

Lisa was quiet for a moment, placing the dry erase marker at the base of the whiteboard, "You know that is isn't your fault Coil is dead, right?"

That brought me up short. I stilled, looking like a small rabbit facing down barreling headlights. "That's not-"

"Seriously Taylor, I mean it. Responsibility for that falls in this order. One, Coil. He broke the rules. He press ganged me in my civilian ID. He knew all about my family, and threatened to murder me. That alone justified it. Beyond that, he took a stupid risk when he was down on that street, at our mercy. He chose to lash out, and that had consequences."

I glared at Lisa, "No, just stop. I knew you brought a gun with you from the very beginning. Psychic, remember? I didn't stop you! You suspected he would end up dead- not captured. I _let_ you. I ignored it intentionally. Its like... you don't know what it's like!"

Lisa game me a hard look, "There's very little I don't get, Taylor. Let me take a guess. From your perspective, it was like you turned the gun on yourself and pulled the trigger. You, me , him... you knew what was happening from every angle and let it play out. A puppet master tugging at the strings. Am I close?"

I saw sullen eyes reflected from Lisa's Perspective. "Yes," I whispered.

"Well... it's bullshit. Just because you are in our heads doesn't mean we lack free will. I pulled the trigger because that bastard was lunging at my friend. That's it. Capes play a dangerous game. Just because your power trumps his doesn't mean that he was helpless. Those sorts of situations can turn around in a heartbeat when capes are involved, especially a Thinker like him. He made a decision, took a risk. I made a decision. Yes, I'll admit you made a decision to let it happen. Your actions were, at most, one-third of the equation. Don't start thinking we are automatons, Taylor. That's a scary path to start down, got it?"

At that point my mouth was hanging open at Lisa's outburst. She was right, of course. I couldn't think of my friends as puppets while they were under my influence. In fact, I hadn't even been adjusting Lisa's Perspective when she pulled the trigger.

She smiled, "Thought so."

****ADMINISTRATION****

The Palanquin was a few blocks off of Lord street, away from the Market, and opposite the area under heavy ABB influence. Faultline's crew was in an interesting gray area of legality that was rare in a highly divided city like Brockton Bay. They were officially dubbed Villains by the PRT, but were ignored for the most part. Faultline's ownership of the Palanquin was an open secret, as many members of her crew were impossible to disguise, but the Protectorate left them alone. Lisa had called it a shameful, amicable relationship since Faultline was well known for her "ethical" behavior in adherence to contracts, avoiding killing in all cases, and causing local trouble or "pissing in the bed she sleeps in" as Tattletale put it. She approached the Palanquin in her full costume regalia, and I slipped into the grocery store across the street as Taylor. I had a backpack with a mask in it just in case, but the idea was for Specter to be involved, rather than any physical presence by myself. Taylor had no purpose to be there physically. The store was large with its entrance opposite of the orientation of the Palanquin. Perspectives popped up gradually as I made my way to the back of the store, pretending to browse the frozen food section. Tattletale was a given, of course. Then there was Newter, Gregor the Snail, Faultline, and… whoa.

One of my Perspectives was standing an Alice in Wonderland world, complete with checkerboard ground, trees with fruit that looked like water balloons filled with paint, bushes in the shape of mythical animals, and marble columns that twisted and turned in non-Euclidean directions. In the distance was a clock that was suspended in the sky like the sun, its second hand ticking backwards with an echoing tick that sounded like your ears were right next to the clockwork of Big Ben. The marble columns were of various sizes, twisting as if they were clay wrapped around metal coat hangers poorly imagined high school art project.

Labyrinth stood in the center of it all, looking in every direction half in admiration and half in frustration. She was trying to find her way home, and completely failing at the task. That was… depressing. Her platinum blonde hair hung down limply, as if it could feel her desperation and depression as she searched. I could feel her mask resting on the top of her head via the Perspective, and the swish of emerald green robes around her legs. Labyrinth traced her fingers along a marble column that looped around itself like a ram's horns, then continued on. Her feet were bare, and underfoot the black and white checkerboard turned into soft spring grass as she stepped. The change from marble to grass was silent, as was everything else, with the exception of the rhythmic clonk of the giant clock that was so far away. Everything in her world was silent, besides the clock, and the thoughtless humming coming from Labyrinth herself.

That was… wow. I was looking into the fridge at the different types of ice cream the supermarket had to offer, but my entire being was devoted to that one Perspective. No wonder Labyrinth was rated as she was. Shaker 12. She had, literally, an entire world to herself.

That power, however, came with drawbacks. She was lost as the moment, and frustrated that she was taking so long to find the exit. Her thoughts revealed that this was one of her bad days, where she couldn't be lucid and aware of what she thought of as the 'surface,' where her friends and teammates lived.

Tattletale had approached the bounced and was given access. She climbed the stairs to the VIP balcony where Faultline and Gregor, acting as her second in command, waited. Newter was hanging out in a common area, half watching TV and half keeping an eye on Labyrinth, who was sitting on a beanbag and tracing patterns in the carpet. But she wasn't on the beanbag and tracing the carpet. Not really.

Faultline spread her hands in a magnanimous gesture. "Well well, if it isn't the mysterious Tattletale of the Undersiders. How can I help you today?"

Tattletale twitched at Faultline's tone, but reigned in a retort. Instead she let her power loose with our goal in mind. "Faultline, Gregor," she nodded to the two parahumans. "How is the rest of the Crew?"

"They are well," Gregor said in a thick accent that sounded eastern European. His thoughts were methodical, his disposition unusually even for a cape. At least, in comparison to all the capes whose Perspectives I had gained thus far.

"That's good," Tattletale said with a grin. Well I suppose I'll get right down to it. The Undersiders have acquired a new member recently and we've had something of a change in direction. "

Faultline leaned forward, her welding mask hiding her intrigued expression. She, apparently, loved these sorts of conversations. "Oh? I haven't heard of any newbies in the city. Who is it?"

That was my cue, I supposed.

I enforced Specter's presence on all parahumans in the building. Black mist seeped in from every crack in the floor, from behind every unseen place, to coalesce into my spectral avatar. To my other Perspectives the human shaped void to the stars stood before them and spoke, "Me. Hello Faultline, my name is Specter."

There had been no visible reaction from either Faultline or Gregor in the few seconds I spent forming my avatar, but the shift in their mindsets was drastic. The game was different now, dangerous. Specter was an unknown with what seemed to be heavy duty Stranger and Changer powers.

The tension was heavy, pushing down on the shoulders of Faultline and Gregor. It was very much hidden if only the normal indicators were considered. Faultline wasn't gripping a weapon with a creak of leather gloves. Gregor wasn't shifting his gaze between Tattletale and Specter. Tattletale wasn't standing sideways to minimize her profile, hat drawn low over her brow to protect her eyes from the burning noon sun. No, there was none of that.

In fact, Tattletale was smiling pleasantly, definitely not reaching for the knife she had slipped past the guard. Gregor had turned his fearful lean away from Specter into a relaxed slouch, his slushy form molding to his chair and hiding the organs that began concocting sticky, noxious chemicals. Faultline had no visible tells at all. Her welding mask hid her face completely and her rigid form hadn't budged an inch since Specter had been enforced upon her. The only way I could tell was via the pounding heartbeat, her constricted throat. She was ready for a fight. They all were.

Tattletale decided to break the ice. "Sorry about the entrance. Specter has certain limits on how and when he can appear." She shrugged her shoulders as if it was of no importance. "Anyways, now that everyone is here, let's get down to business, yeah?"

Faultline's tension eased as Tattletale brought the conversation back into familiar territory, "What sort of job are you looking for?"

"Well, two things. First we'd like your help eradicating the Merchants."

"We don't murder," Faultline said instantly. Her eyes flicked to my form unconsciously, her head moving just a few millimeters in my direction. Too scary? Nah.

Tattletale waved her hand dismissively, but failed to contain her growing smile. She had caught the slip as well. "We're reforming, remember? Capture only, and then turn the Capes over to the PRT. We want to clean up the train yard and surrounding areas. A gesture of goodwill for the city to prove we're serious."

"I see," Faultline said, "And the second thing?"

"We want to keep your Crew on retainer as a semi-permanent arrangement, using the destruction as the Merchants as a trial run of how well we work together."

****ADMINISTRATION****

"Augh!" A world away, Labyrinth kicked on of the stone pillars, her frustration at being unable to find her way back to the surface finally beating her. Looking at her Perspective, she was a totally normal person. Her mind was intact, if slightly childish, and she was stuck here in a world that was half real, half imagination.

I knew what it was like, being alone.

I really wanted to help her.

"Hello? Are you alright?"

Labyrinth startled at the voice, which I had crafted to be a mix of childlike, and animistic, since the voice came from a bird fluttering down onto the nearest pillar. The bird had electric blue feathers and large yellow eyes. A crest of crimson feathers created a mohawk that trailed down its long neck. Its legs were also slightly elongated and covered in crimson red scales, with sharp black talons rounding out the ensemble. It stood vertically like a flamingo but slightly smaller and stockier, and a lot more talkative.

Labyrinth startled at the question with a sharp, "Oh!" and locked eyes with my bird. "Hello bird!"

"Are you alright?" my bird repeated, snapping its head back and forth with bursts of intermittent movement to stare at her with one yellow eye at a time.

"Yes! Well... no. I wasn't, but now I'm better. I was looking for my friends who live on the surface, and sometimes its really hard for me to find them. But now you're here, talking to me! I've never met anyone else down here. I thought I was alone."

My bird shook its head. "Not alone. Not anymore, that is," it croaked. "Friends? Do you want help finding your friends? How can I help?"

"I need to find the window," Labyrinth said. "I need to be able to see the surface, so I can get back. Sometimes I forget what it looks like, so I get lost down here. When that happens I look and look, until I find the window and remember where I was."

That... seemed doable. My bird hopped up and down a few times in a reflection of my excitement and took to the air. I don't know why I was playing within the 'rules' of Labyrinth's power, taking the time to fly my bird away to find an object similar to what she was expecting. It just seemed right, somehow. So I made my bird disappear from Labyrinth's view over a hedgerow shaped like the parapet of a castle wall, and then returned after thirty seconds of rustling. In its talons was a small hand mirror. My bird dropped the mirror into Labyrinth's waiting hands and squawked, "Found one! This game was so easy I could do it all day!"

Labyrinth was caressing the mirror with her fingertips, tracing the tarnished silver that made up the body and handle, then looked at the bird with shining eyes. "Thank you Mr. Bird! Come on, I want you to meet my friends! You'll love Newter and Gregor! Faultline is strict, but really nice too!"

Labyrinth reached up to grab the body of my bird, and that's when something very _very_ strange happened. Labyrinth touch my bird avatar. Actually physically reached out and touched my illusion.

Then, before I could even process what was happening, she focused on the mirror which also became solid in actuality rather than my enforcement of the illusion, and focused on the image it showed- herself siting on the bean bag, tracing lines in the carpet.

And then, with a strange slurping sensation from both the Perspectives of Labyrinth and Bird, they were suddenly back on the surface world. Bird was on the surface world. Bird, which has been an illusion in the labyrinth, was now physically there in the break room, hopping up and down on the floor, wings flapping, lungs breathing, heart beating, and totally under my control as a new Perspective.

The six pack of strawberry yogurts I had been pretending to examine slipped from my fingers and clattered to the supermarket floor.

Holy shit.

"Elle? You back? Nod if you can hear me. Holy shit! That your bird?" Newter had perked up at Labyrinth's sudden motion, then immediately spotted Bird. I hadn't enforced Bird onto his Perspective. Bird wasn't a mental construct.

Bird was intelligent... sort of. I could feel its thoughts, simple, and very like my own. It was both aware of and completely loyal to its Master, but also had a fondness for Labyrinth.

I suppose it was time to roll with the punches. I released my hold over Bird, allowing myself to simply observe from it's eyes, and listen to it's thoughts. "I have a name, you know!" Bird croaked.

"Elle Your bird can talk! I didn't know you could make animals!"

"Yes. Isn't he gorgeous?" Labyrinth said in a dreamy voice. Bird hopped into her arms, and she pet his crest of blue feathers.

Elle's Perspective, now that she was back on the surface, was wrong. Everything was seen through a transparent sheen of the world below. The questions that Newter asked her were distant and hard to understand, as if they were echoed through a long tunnel. Bird's feathers felt almost sticky to the touch, despite the fact that Bird's own Perspective showed me his feathers were finer than silk. It seemed that Labyrinth's power superimposed the world below onto the real one, which scoured her senses of anything concrete. While her power was incredible, I could feel the frustration building in her mind. She just wanted to be able to talk to her friends, just be able to spend time with the people she cared about.

That was something I could help with. With a tweak of her Perspective, the world below dropped away, and the real world came back into focus. Newter's voice lost its ethereal, echoing quality, and Labyrinth blinked. Then she jumped to her feet and spun in a circle, laughing. Bird fell away with an indignant squawk and a flap of feathers. "Everything is so clear! Newter! You sound so close to me! Did you do this, Mr. Bird?"

From his place on the floor, Bird took a moment to compose himself by shaking out his feathers as if he was talking a bath, before replying, "No."

Newter shifted on his feet, tail sticking out in the direction opposite his lean for counterbalance. He smiled at Labyrinth's good mood and apparent lucidity.

"Where's Faultline and Newter?" she asked.

They're out in the main club, but- hey Elle, wait!"

Labyrinth ran out of the door as soon as Newter had told her were to find her other teammates, leaving him alone with Bird, who was currently preening his feathers. At the sudden commotion Bird looked up and saw he was alone with Newter. "So..." Bird said, taking in Newter's orange skin and long tail, "You look funny."

Newter glanced away from the doorway and looked at the strange creature on the floor of the kitchen, "Thanks, I guess. Back at you."

****ADMINISTRATION****

I had progressed past the yogurt and cheeses and was now in front of the milk, a smile on my lips. Faultline was being coy with Tattletale, dodging questions and attempts to lock her Crew into a long term arrangement. Faultline's Crew was not rich, but they were well off enough to be selective about their jobs. That, combined with the fact that she didn't like Tattletale's attitude meant that she was charging much more than normal for the Merchant job. In other words, Tattletale's ego was screwing up the deal.

As Labyrinth ran down the hallway leading to the Palanquin proper, I spoke up for the first time since introducing Specter, "Tattletale, let's shelve the conversation for now. I believe we're about to be graced by another of Faultline's crew."

Labyrinth rushed into the room, Bird right behind her on outstretched wings just as Faultline turned with a confused, "What-?"

"Faultline, look! I'm back and I found a new- oh!" Labyrinth stopped as she noticed Tattletale and my avatar self.

Faultline was off balance at Specter's interruption and Labyrinth's subsequent appearance, and I decided to keep pushing. "Hello Bird. I see you've found a new friend." Specter turned towards Labyrinth, taking in blonde hair framing a mask painted with a green maze. "He hasn't been bothering you, has he?"

"No!" Labyrinth said immediately. "He hasn't, uh, well... wait! He was down below! Only I can go there. How did he get there? Did you do that? Can... can you help me remember every time?"

"Labyrinth! Go find Newter and see if he needs any help, now that you're back. I thought you two had plans?"

"There's no need. I believe he's hanging just beyond the doorway," Specter said.

Newter's Perspective had been creeping up on the conversation in pursuit of Labyrinth and Bird. Just out of sight he had leapt up to conveniently placed rafters, which I suspected were installed just for him. He dropped down and stuck his head into the balcony, an embarrassed look on his face. "Sorry Faultline, she got really excited over the bird."

"My name is Bird!"

Newter raised an eyebrow at the blue bird, who took the short silence following his proclamation to hop into Labyrinth's arms and settle himself. He shrugged and said, "Sorry. Bird."

I deliberately had Specter shift his stance to grab the attention of the other capes. I was finding that the form had a drawback in that it didn't have any facial expressions I could use. Instead I had to rely on tone of voice, word choice, or broad movements of my starry form.

"To answer your question, Labyrinth, I think I can help you, yes." I paused and turned towards Faultline, "We came here with the intent of simply hiring your Crew, but after meeting Labyrinth, I think something more like an ongoing friendship between our groups would be more beneficial to all."

Faultline didn't say anything at first. Through her Perspective I listened to her weighing the benefits against the dangers- the largest of which was the risk of betrayal. Faultline... she was a good person. She had something of a mother hen instinct that resulted in helping certain types of capes. Case 53's, those like Labyrinth who suffered serious drawbacks from her power, and so on. That was one side of her. The other side was demanding. No one got a free ride with her. Everyone did their part. It fit very well with the group's status as mercenaries, and also explained why she had such a good reputation in a career that was normally talked about with distrust. "What is your power?" she asked my avatar.

Fishing for information. Expected. "I won't go into specifics, but consider me to be a type of shaker, just like Labyrinth. I can change things in small ways, or, in the case of Labyrinth, make them not change."

Tattletale, ever observant, jumped in at that point, "Labyrinth's power involves other dimensions a lot more heavily than you guys realize. A little part of her is always there. Specter's power is similar. It's a lot subtler most of the time, but he has more control. Enough to help your teammate."

"Faultline?" Labyrinth spoke up, "It helps. Bird helped me get back, and now I'm floating better than ever! I don't feel like I'm sinking at all, and that's never happened before."

There was good reason for that, of course. Labyrinth's perspective was heavy. It wanted to sink down into a lower realm of perception, into the place I had found her originally. It wasn't anything physical, of course, just mental, and so I had complete control over it. Tattletale was right when she had said the other places were real. Labyrinth's true power was to perceive, color, and pull. She perceived other realities, colored them to her desires, and then pulled them into existence. What she saw in that other place. The feel of the grass at her feet, the cool marble columns, the chunk-chunk of the clock-in-the-sky was too deep and solemn to be simply imagination. I could _feel_ that her world below was, in most ways, as real as Earth Bet. I hadn't gotten the chance to fully explore the part of my power that allowed me to sense other Parahuman's, er, sources. It was hard to do when I was currently avoiding all direct interaction with any capes I couldn't explicitly trust. But I really _really_ wanted to know more about Labyrinth's power.

I had move past the dairy section in the supermarket. Now I was browsing the section that could only be described as dairy-esque products, a bottle of Cheese Whiz in my hand. I turned it over and over, admiring the red cap as I managed my Perspectives, kept Labyrinth afloat, and marveled at Bird's autonomy and intelligence. The things I could do, they were fake. Imitations. They were at best a reality-substitute. But when combined with Labyrinth, and her ability to make what she saw into reality? That was pure cheddar...

I snorted in laughter and woman with a red plastic basket glanced at me before moving on. _God what a dumb line._

"I... think an arrangement can be made," Faultline said. Labyrinth clapped her hands in excitement, accidentally dropping Bird to the ground with an undignified 'squawk!' Lisa grinned her grin, and I dropped the bottle of Cheese Whiz into my basket, along with a roll of crackers.

"Great!" Lisa said, taking the reigns of the conversation back from Specter. "I think our two teams will have some really good bonding moments when we take down the Merchants! Here's how I see it going..."

I continued my stroll down the aisles of the store, basket in the crook of my arm and a smile on my lips, listening in as the Lisa and Faultline planned the big day.


	4. Perception 4

It had started to rain by the time we got back to our hideout after meeting with Faultline. The light drizzle and cold, almost foggy day-turning-evening was visible from Lisa's bedroom window as the girl sat and stared at me with considering eyes. "OK. So let's try again. A full set of constructed illusions. Something obvious."

I nodded, and between us a floorboard splintered upwards, revealing a clawed white paw. Slowly, the crack enlarged and an undead rabbit pulled itself free of its grave. It began to hopple over to Lisa, swaying drunkenly in a meandering path towards her. A small, groaning squeak escaped its little maw.

From the technical side of things, there was a lot happening. Besides enforcing the zombie rabbit on Lisa's perspective, I maintained the splintered floorboards, the sound of it's shuffling hops, the smell of decay, and the little trails of blood that the creature left behind as it moved towards its target. If she reached out to touch it, her Perspective was already ready to feel it's soiled fur and cold, hardened body. However, it was surprisingly... easy to juggle. Lisa had suggested early on that instead of doing one-off tweaks, I should instead try constructs, like a theme. She first had the idea after I explained why I had chosen to make Bird (who had vanished once outside of Labyrinth's range), how it felt right to work within Labyrinth's expectations and the rules of her universe. Once we got on that path, my tweaks of Perspective became full blown alternate realities, with my power handling all the little details that I had micromanaged previously.

The best way to explain it is like having two different modes. The first mode was where I made a simple enforcement of Perspective. It would be self-consistent and believable. Erasing myself from a cape's perspective, making Shadow Stalker's shoulder twinge in pain, my Specter avatar, and so on. Then there was the complicated stuff. The scene when Rachel's dogs attacked me was the most complex one so far, but Lisa and I had plans to take it further.

Another floorboard cracked and another furry little horror clawed its way into Lisa's bedroom. Then another, and another. Finally, the rain picked up and lightning flashed through the window. Outside, Lisa's perspective spied a giant figure in the distance, looming over apartment buildings and wearing a tarnished, broken crown. It's ears trailed along rooftops, ripping up rooftop equipment and tearing the railings off of fire escapes with it's their impossible weight. The zombie king of bunnies. As if it sensed her gaze, it turned and looked at Lisa with a blank, red eye. Then, it screeched, and the glass on the bedroom window shattered under the strain. Wind and water and glass flew into the bedroom and...

Lisa was up on the bed, kicking at the zombie bunnies that were climbing up the sheets, yelling, "OK, Taylor!" _Kick_ , and a rabbit went flying. "That's enough. You-" _kick_ \- "Can stop now!"

Suddenly, Lisa's Perspective was alone on the bed, looking at the wiry girl with dark curls and a grinning, wide mouth. "That was... disturbing. So I guess we can confirm the theory then. Your power is perfectly willing to do the heavy lifting if you give it a framework."

I nodded, pleased at how successful the test had been.

"How about we try again, this time try something sticking to reality. Something you could take a cape in and out of without them ever realizing they were manipulated." She let out a breath, "Please just... don't make it scary this time?"

I nodded, and grabbed a hold of Lisa's Perspective again.

There was a knock on the door, and Lisa rolled her eyes. "Hold that thought."

She opened the door and Brian stood there. "Yeah?"

He nodded to me before saying to Lisa, "Almost done? I was thinking of grabbing dinner. Get to know Taylor a bit more if she can stay for a bit longer."

Through Lisa's Perspective I heard her power begin to make connections. _Interested in Taylor. Impressed that we made such headway with Faultline's Crew and credits it to her. Wants to make sure she feels welcomed to the team. Is OK with us taking leadership of the group._

"Almost done. Go ahead and order. No pizza though."

"Spoilsport!" Alec yelled from the common area.

Brian nodded, "Chinese then?" Brian's eyes flicked to me again and Lisa's power doubled down on _interested in Taylor._

"Sure," I said.

"Kung Pao Chicken," Lisa said. "Now if you'll excuse us."

She closed the door and walked back to the bed. "Now, where... were..." She saw my radiant smile.

"That was all fake, wasn't it?"

I just smiled.

With a huff, she walked over to the door and yanked it open. "Brian, order me some damn Kung Pao Chicken!"

****ADMINISTATION****

As soon as Shadow Stalker came into my range, I knew something was off. She was looking for me. That hadn't been something she had done since the locker and I quickly skimmed from her thoughts that she was suspicious. Apparently Emma had told her about out little bathroom confrontation yesterday. Between that, a routine check-in by Miss Militia about her school life that was very uninformed, and a number of meetings with her PRT handler, she was getting the impression that she may have been fooled. She had no clue what actually happened, and her suspicions were undefined, but definitely there. So, true to her bullshit about the strong and weak she was planning on, in her words, 'looking me in the eyes' to see if I was acting unusually defiant like Emma had claimed.

Well, the obvious course of action was avoidance. The morning between classes was spend ducking into bathrooms, classrooms, and taking alternate paths from where my other Perspective traveled. We were two opposing magnets, chasing and dancing around each other. However I made sure my two bubbles of awareness never overlapped, where she could see me.

That plan had performed well enough until Glady's history class, where Madison had surreptitiously texted Shadow Stalker and informed her of my presence. At her desk a floor down and on the opposite side of the school, she smirked in satisfaction. I could feel her Perspective's anticipation at having finally found it's quarry, and her plan to duck out of class a few minutes early to make sure she caught me. The dedication actually caught me somewhat by surprise and it hit me that Shadow Stalker's suspicion made this serious.

The stakes had been raised. I could feel the walls closing in, my stomach dropping to settle low in my gut. Shadow Stalker wanted to know why things weren't adding up with the narrative I had fed her after the locker. She thought that, just maybe, she had been tricked. And with Shadow Stalker? That was unacceptable. This could spiral out of my control. I could be exposed. I could-

 _No._ No way. I wasn't going to give in to this. I wasn't going to be intimidated by the threat of Shadow Stalker's attention . She was _my_ plaything, not the other way around.

I remembered when I had gotten the flu last winter, when both Dad and I had neglected to schedule our shots. I remembered the misery of feeling the flu build in my stomach, the mix of suspicion and inevitability of what was about to happen. That helplessness of heaving up an empty stomach, crouched in front of a white porcelain bowl, little flecks of my dinner dancing around the edges of the water.

Slowly, gradually, I tightened my control of her sense of touch, twisting her perception to make her feel a flutter in her stomach. Then, after a few minutes, she felt a knot and a simmering warmth. After the class period was two-thirds through, it had bloomed into full-blown nausea, steadily increasing in intensity. I used the new technique I had pioneered with Lisa, to focus on the outcomes of what I wanted Shadow Stalker to feel, rather than the mechanics of each shift of Perspective. She felt a nonexistent flush of cheeks, sweat that no one else could see, a clamminess of hands that couldn't be felt by anyone else.

Finally, I pulled the trigger, and sent that indescribable feeling of knowing, without a doubt, that you were going to throw up. Through my power I heard Shadow Stalker raise a shaky hand and say, "Mr. Miller, I feel really sick and need to-"

Her stomach pushed upwards and Shadow Stalker burst from her seat, running for the door with a hand clamped tightly over her mouth. She had only made it a few steps into the hallway when she doubled over and heaved.

I was surprised that she actually threw up. I covered my satisfied smile with a hand as my Perspective dropped to hands and knees for a repeat performance, Mr. Miller rushing out the door from the classroom with an exclaimed, "Sophia!"

After that, she was shuffled to the nurse's office and her mother was called. I began to ease off of her symptoms as she waited with a plastic bag in her hands, miserable and fuming. The idea was a gradual transition into her natural, healthy state as she was leaving the school and my range of influence. _A job well done._

As the period wrapped up, I could see Madison's frown grow as she repeatedly checked her phone for a message that never came. When the bell rang, I was the first one out the door into a hallway clear of capes and former friends.

****ADMINISTATION****

The bell above the door jingled as Lisa and I stepped into Parian's Dollhouse later that afternoon. The cape looked up at us and her eyes widened behind her mask. It was white porcelain with puckered red apple lips. Barely visible cracks ran spiderwebs across the mask's surface. Her Perspective was tweaked, of course, and showed Tattletale and Specter standing at her counter. Fabrics, dresses, and clothes covered both walls in waving drapes, not a square inch of the painted cinder block visible beneath. I could even see a few of her deflated animals ready to awaken and serve at a moment's notice. This was a queen in her throne room and all around slumbering guards were ready to serve their master's wishes.

"Can I help you?" Parian asked politely. Internally she was suspicious and... was that Farsi? Huh... I hadn't suspected that little twist. Parian, Sabah, continued to wait politely for a response, her gloved hands folded on her dress, one in front of the other, her hidden hand clenching open and closed. The gloves were a creamy cloth, but I imagined the creaking of leather as she bled her nerves into the movement.

"Yes," Tattletale said. Specter here is looking for a costume. Something protective and simple, and a mask."

Parian's eyes returned to me, taking in my assumed form, and then she shrugged. "Okay... you're the customer." She stepped around the counter and lifted a slender arm. A bolt of cloth tugged itself free from its cubbyhole and whipped through the air like a magic carpet. It wrapped itself around my form tightly, like a mummy. This was one risk we had agreed to take in getting a costume. Parian's surprised gasp as the cloth surrounded my real body was a dead giveaway that she had noticed a difference in what she saw and what she felt through her power. Her thoughts sped up and switched fully to Farsi, but I understood regardless. _'A girl. Young, slim. She feels cute.'_ Tattletale's smirk grew wider as she picked up on Parian's thoughts. Just a hitch in the breath and a lowering of the head to give away that little secret.

"We expect your discretion, Parian- as a rouge and professional both," Specter said, and Parian jumped.

"Yes, of course. I do the same for all my clients. It's... well known that I'm discreet." She jotted down a few measurements and then the cloth fell away from my body. The impression of my face, however, was still in the cloth, held in place by Parian's power. She cut out that section from the rest of the cloth, "I'll use that to shape the inside of your mask, then destroy the mold. I can also give it back to you if you want to handle destroying it yourself. Your choice."

Specter said, "Destroy it."

Parian nodded, "And the design of the costume? Any ideas on, err," she eyed my form again, confusion flitting across her mind. _'Changer, maybe?'_

"Something simple," Specter said. He shifted and looked around the room, as if to get ideas from the surrounding bolts of cloth. "Dark and protective, but not restrictive." Parian looked at his starry form and her confusion intensified.

"I can do that," she said instead, looking into the two glowing spots that served as Specter's eyes. "A mix of steel plate over the essentials and Kevlar over the rest. Its normal steel so don't expect protection from anything... exotic."

I nodded, making my avatar's eyes wink out as if they had been closed. It was a simple thing, but the disturbing thought of two galaxies vanishing was... unsettling to most people.

The effect wasn't lost on Parian as she shivered beneath her mask and gloves, unseen goosebumps prickling under her long sleeves.

"Thank you," Tattletale cut in. "And make this a rush order. We'll pay whatever you think is fair."

A few more details were hashed out. The gender the costume should project, the defining features we may want, what the mask should look like, the inclusion of an actual cape, and so on. Once Parian and Tattletale worked out a price and time frame, we left. Grue's darkness filled the street and Tattletale and I slipped out of our costumes. Through Brian's Perspective I could hear the screams of the civilians trapped in the darkness with us, but as I stuffed my domino mask into my bag and strolled along the cowering people, I smiled.

Lisa's car was where we left it. I got into the passenger seat and Lisa pulled out of the public lot for the Market. We turned the corner and picked up an unconsumed Brian waiting for us, shielding himself from the drizzle underneath an umbrella.

"So!" said Lisa as we pulled back into traffic, "Got some news concerning the Undersider's PR initiative. Coil's mercenaries have been brought into the fold for the most part, but there was some inevitable downsizing. Some bugged out due to the changes, others weren't trustworthy so I let them go. Not the team players we need, y'know?"

I turned to Lisa, "You kept on Coil's mercenaries? I thought you were cutting things down." Brian's employer, a few buildings for Rachel's future shelters... I hadn't gotten anything from Lisa's thoughts about this. I blushed at the indignation I felt and squirmed a bit.

"It's nothing big. Just a new, very well equipped private security firm. Coil's company had special permits for the weapons and equipment, and throwing away above board permits like that is wasteful."

"Not sure I feel good about this, Lisa," I said. Was I allowed the be angry at this? We were partners, after all, not a queen ruling her subjects.

"It's just an extra precaution in case we need some well trained henchmen. Cobra Security isn't really the point here anyways," Lisa said. "The captains informed me that some of the Toybox equipment is missing. Specifically six cases of laser rifles."

Brian spoke in his deep, calm voice, "The guys you fired stole laser rifles?"

Lisa shrugged, keeping her eyes on the road. "The majority of theft for any business comes from its employees," she said. "The problem is that I think the rifles found their way into the hands of the Merchants."

"What? How?" Brian asked. I agreed with his unspoken thoughts. _'Why the hell would good mercenaries join the merchants?'_

"Two reasons. One is Trainwreck. He was on Coil's paycheck and infiltrating the Merchants. I made him an offer to keep him on, but he wasn't interested. Coil promised him to look into his past, as a Case 53. A lie, of course, and one that he wasn't going to buy from me. Got some security footage of his guys walking out with the cases. So my money is that at least a small number of merchants may be considerably better equipped than they were a few days ago. Two, Skidmark's got money. He's got a reputation as a loser- some of which is deserved. No one ever claimed he was a penniless loser. He's got a lot of capes, he's got money, and he's got territory. Sometimes that's all you need."

"So the job just got a lot harder, then," Brian said.

"Not necessarily harder," Lisa said, "Just a bit more complicated."

****ADMINISTATION****

Despite all the talk on PHO, the Merchants were a lot harder to find than expected. Sure, their pushers weren't hard to find, despite the rainy evening. In fact it was hard to find a street corner that didn't have a dealer in sight. We struggled to avoid their notice as we pushed north and inland, skirting the ship graveyard to where the Merchants laid claim to their territory north of Archer Street. I had not come across any new Perspectives as we ventured into the worst slums of the Bay, and my frown deepened further.

Also, did I mention it was still raining? It was the type of light rain that was silent, falling from the darkened sky and streaking my head and shoulders with light touches. Those silent drizzles quickly added up, though, and my outermost layer of clothing had quickly been soaked through. While the raindrops themselves were silent, they became noisy once they came together to splatter from the rooftops enmasse.

It was a strange combination of silence and noise. Off in every direction, millions of drops streaked noiselessly from the night sky. They were slow, not heavy enough to break through the resistance of the air, but they seemed to have an inevitable sense of purpose to them. As they collected, however, all sense of purpose and individuality was lost. The water streamed off the rooftops and splashed onto the sidewalks and streets. The water was collected and directed into something boisterous and powerful, if lacking in finesse.

Usually, I loved this type of rain. A blanket, a book, a warm drink, and a seat by the window was my go-to combination for weather like this. At this particular moment however, I could have done without it. Combined with the stubborn, slushy snow lingering from what was expected to be the last snowfall of the season, I was miserable.

 _'Nothing yet?'_ Tattletale asked in her mind.

"No," I said directly to her Perspective. I had to 'speak' to reply to Tattletale's inner thoughts, which was something of a strange situation. I could listen to thoughts, so getting a message to me was as simple as thinking it. To respond, though, a manipulation of the senses was needed. I couldn't force a thought directly into her head. I simply made the tweak in Lisa's perspective so it seemed like I spoke.

Building off of the 'constructed realities' concept Lisa and I had come up with earlier, I hadn't actually spoken a word to anyone the entire night. Instead, I simply enforced all my responses on my Perspectives, as if I was talking. That way I could respond to one person, or to everyone, exactly when and how I wanted. No mistakes, no misunderstandings, no slips, no tells.

It was a system Lisa and I had agreed on as we got ready for Alec's 'Operation Bwnage.' If she thought a question to me, she would know any response was for her only. If she asked it out loud, she would assume I answered in kind, or at least tweaked the team's Perspectives to make it seem so.

"Still not getting anything," Tattletale said out loud to the rest of the team.

With a sharp whistle from the stocky girl sitting in front of me, the dogs shot forward.

We sprinted down the side streets and alleys where we got drenched by water streaming from fire escapes and leaky gutters. It was needed, though, to avoid as many watchful eyes as possible. We broke cover of the two tall brick buildings into an area dominated by high rise apartments. The buildings were large rectangles built out of concrete, their sharp lines and complete neglect of aesthetics made them seem like they had been copied right out of the former USSR. The buildings, turned almost black by smog, mold, and years of neglect, reached up a dozen stories each, packing the poor in tightly as if preventing them from escaping. The rain had washed away all but the most protected snow, and that dying slush did nothing to clear the air of pervasive hopelessness that blanketed this part of the Bay.

Still no new Perspectives as our monstrous mounts slowed to a trot, their paws both splashing through puddles and squelching up slush.

A beam of yellow light lanced out from one of the concrete apartment buildings and struck Angelica in the side, and her legs buckled from underneath her. I watched from multiples Perspectives as I launched into the air. My arms and feet flailed automatically to keep my stable, millions of years of evolutionary response kicking in. Millions of years of selection to see myself swimming through the air in a tangle of limbs and whipping hair. But it worked. I hadn't flipped, and the ground was coming up to meet me slowly.

Angelica had fallen to her side completely by now, sliding on the wet snow. An evil black and red mark opened the bone plating on her side and exposed red flesh underneath. Bitch was next to her fallen companion, having held on as the pair went down.

Wait... how? How did I have the time to process all of this? It wasn't exactly as if I was experiencing the world in slow motion. It was... as if... I had so much more ability to process and make decisions in real-time. The world was not slowed down, but my mind was some strange equivalent of being sped up, overclocked, to where I could work out my decisions accordingly. I had breathing room.

So I took those eight weeks of free gymnastics classes my parents had signed me up for four years ago and tucked towards the ground, moving my head into my chest and my legs upwards. I turned the flail into a smooth somersault. My feet hit the wet asphalt and I compensated for the slippery surface, burning off the rest of my inertia with a roll. The roll wasn't enough on its own. I wish I could say that I ended up on my feet, but my body did not have the capability of superhuman speed or strength. Instead I rolled, over and over, using my hands and tucking my shoulders with perfect synchronicity to ensure I wasn't injured past a few scrapes and bruises. I returned to my feet as Tattletale thought, _'Nice reaction time, there. Found a new trick?'_

My moment of clarity diminished as another laser flashed the rain into steam and struck Judas. He didn't go down though, as Bitch had pushed her power to the max and her dogs grew even stringer. Then the street plunged into darkness as Grue activated his power. The darkness covered the whole street as the lasers became as numerous as the raindrops, striking into our blackened zone of safety at random. Through Grue's Perspective I saw steam rising, floating out of the darkness to struggle against the rain as the intense beams of light lanced into our position like a pincushion. When they entered the darkness, however, they lost most of their intensity.

 _'No longer instantly lethal,'_ Tattletale supplied helpfully. Regardless the world slowed down again in response to the threat, even more than when I was falling from Angelica. This new aspect of my power was not new, I realized. This was just the most obvious application of it. Everything was happening with a perfect clarity. Every action happening around me had a consequence. Every consequence caused another action, and that chain continued on into the future until there was a resolution. I couldn't see into the future, but I could see the present in perfect clarity. At every beat I could make a decision, insert a change into my Perspectives or by my own actions, with all the cold calculation of a Chess Grandmaster. I wondered if there was a word for that; with the PRT's vaunted rating systems and categories, post and precognatives. I supposed the proper term would be pericognative.

Despite my newfound processing ability, the beams of light were still traveling at the universal speed limit. One moment there was nothing, and another moment a brilliant searing beam tore a line through Grue's darkness from the rooftops.

A flash, and pain exploded from my side. I fell to the ground with a cry and curled into a fetal position by instinct. _Oh shit... oh shit that hurts!_ Trapped. Helpless. This stupid power wasn't enough. I still wasn't strong enough to actually do anything. Taken out by unpowered mercenaries on rooftops. Rejects that hadn't even been good enough to make Tattletale's cut! I rolled to my knees, still doubled over with my forehead on the rough asphalt. I was soaked through, collected water rushing by and droplets streaming down my face. This... this wasn't okay. This was unacceptable. I needed more Perspective. The rain drops fell, I closed my eyes, and I opened the floodgates of my power.

...

The difference between my own senses and the faculties I was receiving through my power was a strange mix of clarity and blindness. It was as if I was looking at the world through sunglasses with a single lens popped out, the merged sight both fully bright and fully shaded, instead of some hybrid of both. The liquid smoke swirled around and through me, blocking out anything I could see and hear, but I still _saw_ via Grue. That single point of reference was enough. I faded out the blackness into a light mist for my allies, enforcing Grue's clarity on them, and in turn I began to receive Tattletale's hyperactive assessment of the situation. Her powers allowed me to send back little tweaks to Grue, Regent, and Bitch, giving them insight. The snipers on the roof, the dirty thugs on the ground, Bitches whistle for her dogs to loop around, their monstrous claws digging gouges into the asphalt. Everything... everything began to fit into the appropriate place- all at once.

This was something I had never experienced while flexing my power. The clarity, the awareness, the sense of control. Was this my true power? My trick? I turned on my heel, spinning away from my teammates who were halfway back to me, watching the lasers burn through the rain. The snipers had seen me go down before Grue's blackness had gone up, so the majority of laser fire was hitting close to me. I stepped left to avoid a shot and it streaked by. Another came from behind, three stories up, and I twisted my shoulder to let it sizzle past me ear. Perfect clarity, efficient motion. The world passing in sync with my decisions. That was all I needed.

My side ached and I looked to see sticky blood. That first shot had been bad. Hand to the side, to feel for the severity of the wound, and a step forward to dodge a bullet fired into the darkness from a yellow-toothed Merchant. Burnt and cauterized, I noted. Three more strikes of laser weapons left glowing spots in the asphalt, no need to dodge. Grue was leaning down to scoop me up as they passed by, but a laser weapon was lining up to hit him in the back. Too sudden. I couldn't enforce a warning, as he wouldn't react fast enough. None of the Undersiders would. They didn't know what I could do, what was happening. They would consider, not react. They were too independent of my management, right now. However...

I copied Bitch's whistle, just so, and Judas jumped. The laser passed under Judas' flank and left a glowing pockmark in the street. Judas soared over me, and I felt Grue's despair as I passed beneath, staring calmly back, hand to the blackened scorch on my ribs.

Mere second had passed since my fall and activation of my real power, and already the situation was lost. This street was a kill zone. More shooters were bringing their weapons to bear. I saw myself dodge, one, two, three shots in quick succession, spinning like a dancer. Then there was no way out as the odds caught up to me. A shot hit my thigh with an electrical crackle and a smell of burning flesh. More pain as the ground raced up and-

****ADMINISTATION****

A blackened set of teeth greeted me as I woke. "Welcome to the Merchants," they said with a grin. I blinked. Everything was blurry, and my side hurt. Where was I? I closed my eyes and focused on my power. Five Perspectives.

Grin turned out to be Skidmark, the leader of the Merchants. He was observing me, my form slumped on a ratty couch. The rain had apparently picked up as it pounded against the barred window with newly found anger. I imagined it was trying to free me.

I opened my eyes again to be greeted with a blurry mess. I rolled over with a groan and covered my eyes, Apparently the laser, or something since, had done serious damage to my vision. Biting off any more noise I closed my eyes again, trusting in my Perspectives to show me what I needed to see. Skidmark was there, leering and gleeful that I was in obvious pain. In the kitchen was another Perspective. An elaborate setup of beakers, copper tubing, hot plates, and bunsen burners covered a peninsula countertop fronted by barstools topped with stained cushions. The equipment was manned by a parahuman named Cook. I hadn't heard of him before, but his thoughts pegged him as a Tinker. _[Three hundred and twelve degrees. Agitate. Hook up to condensate. Insert anode and cathode, set to three thousand volts at two hundred milliamps. Check for crystal formation on cathode after five minutes.]_ The mental instructions were accompanied by Cook's indistinct mutterings and occasional sharp sniff as he moved beakers around his lab. Drugs. He was making tinker drugs.

Leaning in the doorway to the apartment was a busty woman in a formerly white tank top, glaring at me. Squeeler's mind brimmed with jealousy of my slumped form and Skidmark's unwanted attention. A heavy wrench was weighting down a utility belt on her hips, handle wrapped in leather with a few red buttons. A green light next to the buttons pulsed steadily.

Down below was another Perspective that was covered by a stinking, wet darkness. My breath hitched as I was forcibly reminded of the locker. But it was just trash- the unfortunate limitation of the telekinetic named Mush.

Finally, through the splattering window, across the street was yet another tinker- Trainwreck. Trainwreck was rather distinct from my other new Perspectives in that he wasn't even slightly affected by the drugs in his system. His sensations were sharp, his mind cunning. In the room with him were two mercenaries holding laser rifles. Coil's former men.

"Your shit ready, Cook?" Skidmark asked. "Gotta do this fast." Skidmark was keeping his eyes on my still form, lingering on my flat chest and small hips. Despite the leering gaze, he was watching carefully for any sudden or suspicious movement on my part. After all, I was wearing my cheap domino mask. Masks meant danger.

My side was on fire, burning, and I couldn't move without severe pain. Five Perspectives. I couldn't move, but I could work with this. I would. _You can do this, Taylor. You saw what your power could do in the street._

"Please," I said to their Perspectives. A female voice, deep and sultry, with no panic. Confident. A cape they had never heard of before. "I don't want to fight. Let me go?" My true form was curled on the couch, slumped and unmoving, but they saw me sit up slowly as I spoke.

I raised my hand into the air in preparation for what I knew was coming, and was rewarded with a slap as Skidmark struck out at his Perspective's moving figure. He struck my hand.

 _Vector. Adult Tertiary. Warrior._

Information flooded my mind as I greeted Skidmark's power. Yes. This was what I needed. Something inside me flicked on, as I went into the same state that I had discovered on that street, surrounded by bullets, rain, and Grue's cavernous darkness. Skidmark began to speak, and I allowed it, "You stupid bitch! You think-"

****ADMINISTATION****

"I don't want to fight. Let me go?" Damn, that bitch had a sexy voice. But this was business, and a new cape was more important than a new bitch, so I slapped her as she began to push herself up.

"You stupid bitch! You think-"

She vanished in a puff of smoke and I saw a ghastly figure materialize beside Cook. Shit! "Get the stuff, shitbasket!" I yelled at Cook. He reached for his special cocktail, but the black figure reached it first. I laid down multiple fields of force in quick succession and knocked the smoky figure on her ass. _Take that, motherfucker._ The syringe flew through the air and I laid down my field so that it came towards me. I caught it just as there there was a noise from the kitchen, like an explosion mixed with voices being torn apart. A smoky figure rushed through the counter at me, so I caught the vial, pivoted and thrust the needle into that cuntlicker's neck. The motherfucker vanished with the same puff of smoke and a scream that made me believe that souls felt pain.

"Skids!" I saw the ghostly figure grab Squeeler and throw her across the room. I laid down a field to stop her momentum, but it didn't do much. Squeeler crunched against the bars and fell on the couch, and the ghostly apparition stood in the doorway, looking back at me. I could see galaxies spinning in her eyes. Then she fell forward onto the floor, and stayed there, a syringe sticking out of her neck.

Floodlights filled the room through the window, and I heard gunfire down below. Through the window came a voice amplified on a loudspeaker, and the thrum of helicopter blades, "This is the PRT. Come out with your hands in the air!"

"Fuck!" I yelled. "We gotta go, baby!"

"Skids... Skids..."

I looked at Squeeler on the couch, and everything stopped. Her face was bloody from a long, nasty gash on her forehead. She was clutching her side with one arm, only partially successful in blocking the hole in her stomach, leaking dark blood. The other arm was clearly broken. Her eyes were locked onto mine. Scared. I knew those eyes.

Gunfire rattled through the open doorway and containment foam splattered through the window, flecking the room in small goblets of rapidly expanding foam. I could see flashlights and the stomp of heavy boots heading towards us. I laid down multiple lines of my strongest force with a yelled, "Cocksuckers!" before turning back to Squeeler.

"Bitch, oh shit..."

"This ain't good, Skids," she said. I smelled a sharp smell, coming from behind her hand. "We gotta get to a hospital Skids. I can't fix this."

I nodded, "Yeah. Yeah, let's get out of here." I picked Squeeler up, and grunted at how light she was. I passed the shadow girl, kicking her as hard as I could in the ribs, and ran out into the hallway of the apartment.

The hall was a warzone, with my Merchants fighting as best they could against those gimp-suited PRT asswipes. A number of troopers turned towards me and shouted, "Halt!"

I laid down a dozen zones of force and sent the troopers flying into walls, over tables, and one particularly unlucky motherfucker at the opposite end of the hallway over the half wall of the stairwell and down twenty feet.

We made it to the street without too much more trouble, and crossed through the rain. My Merchants were holding their own. Trainwreck's crew was laying down some serious light show shit from the rooftops. Across the street was an auto mechanics's shop where my Bitch kept her toys. I climbed up the steel rungs welded into the side of the body and into the hatch of the truck.

"Put me down Skids," Squeeler said, "I got this." I put her into the driver seat, and with a few sharp breaths, she let go of her side and flicked a few switches on the control panel.

"Don't be fucking stupid, bitch!" I yelled as her wound began to weep blood and bile more quickly, and I pushed my hands firm against her side. "The fuck you thinking?"

Squeeler gritted her teeth and ignored me in favor of turning the key on the steering column. With an unmuffled roar and glare of floodlights stolen from a sports arena, we started traveling towards Brockton Bay General to 'negotiate' some treatment.

****ADMINISTATION****

I looked over at Skidmark, his hand pressed against his chest tightly. The bulled looked to have pierced a lung- more more damage than anything I could handle. Well- that wasn't entirely true. I could have made something with my specialty a long time ago. An ambulance, emergency mobile surgery, those were all within my specialty. If it had wheels, treads, or jets and could move, I had ideas on how to make it.

But I hadn't, of course.

I wasted my time on shit like the truck, a six tractor tired monstrosity that roared down the slick streets, my poor Skids in pain and helpless. The things I made were awesome, yes, and Skidmark loved them. He was always so proud when I showed off a new toy ("My best bitch!"), but what good were toys when when my boyfriend was dying next to me, those PRT assholes attacking for no reason? When that stupid skinny shadow girl got the jump on them, what good had I been?

Fuck! I slammed my hand on the steering wheel in anger. I hadn't been good enough. I screwed around with junk and now my Skids was paying the price. I veered to the side of the street and crushed a little coupe. Some shit Japanese model that was probably as rare as fuck since Kyushu, but whatever. We were heading through the docks now, so it was probably some ABB shit's anyways. As I corrected course, I watched the little coupe flip onto its roof and spin into the middle of the street. I smiled, just a little. I had been an idiot, but my power was still awesome. I would do better next time. I would be better... for Skiddy.

A few minutes later I pulled into the Brockton Bay Memorial parking lot, running through the planters and snapping the trunks of freshly planted saplings to do so. I turned in my seat and looked to Skiddy, "You OK, baby?"

He looked pale, his teeth gritted in pain and his head pushed against the dirty rolled towel that was ziptied to the steel frame of the headrest. "What do you think?" he bit out.

I smiled weakly. He was in pain. "Shh, shh. Come on, let's get you out."

With more grunts of pain I managed to extract us from my truck and down to the rain slicked asphalt of the parking lot. To my surprise, Panacea walked up and immediately knelt down to Skiddy. "Just a bullet wound. Pierced lung. Not too bad."

I just nodded, not willing to piss her off. After a few seconds, the bullet pushed itself up and out of the wound, which then sealed itself with fresh, smooth skin. I sighed in relief and bent towards Skiddy.

****ADMINISTATION****

I stood up as Amy finished healing the blackened laser marks on my thigh and side, skirting out of the way as Skidmark and Squeeler both moved to gather me up. I finished their storylines and began to merge everything back together.

I began moving myself, finishing up Panacea's Perspective of a young girl who had been caught in the crossfire of a cape fight. It was actually somewhat close to the truth and allowed me to keep well away from modifying the information that her power was feeding her. I shuddered at her thoughts as her Perspective watched Glory Girl fly away. There were serious problems with the Dallon family.

This was messy. I had been messy in my almost delirious pain. There were now three parahumans who had disagreeing ideas of what had transpired in this parking lot. Skidmark thought Squeeler had been hurt, and she him. Panacea thought she had healed an innocent girl. Glory Girl would be named by Panacea and quickly protest that she hadn't been anywhere near the hospital. Three different stories from capes, one from a hero with no reason to lie, two from villains who wouldn't lie with such nonsensical conviction, and a fourth named who would deny any involvement. That pointed pretty clearly to a serious Master or Stranger.

And Shadow Stalker. She would be briefed about how capes were telling stories about events that didn't seem to line up. Actions and decisions that, looking back, didn't quite make sense. A possible new Master or Stranger in Brockton Bay. Oh no...

I jogged out of the parking lot with renewed health and a troubled mind. I took out my phone and dialed Lisa. As the phone rang, I shuddered at the other revelation of the cape known as Panacea. Her power wasn't just healing. It was complete control of biology. Anything biological. Anything alive, and all of their not alive cousins like viruses and prions.

 _Shaper. Juvenile Queen. Warrior._

This power... it was too much. It revealed too much. Labyrinth, Panacea, Squeeler. They were the worst, but every cape I had met had serious problems. Every single one, without exception. Could I fix them? Should I even try? Did they deserve it? I had already dedicated myself to doing so with Elle, but I was sure to find that this was a losing battle. People like Amy certainly deserved help- isolation and loneliness were feelings I understood. She was all but doomed to failure with her family life, and her hopeless love for her adopted sister. Even Squeeler had my understanding now. Her life had been torn apart by addiction and she had fixated on a single thing- Skidmark.

Was that the fate of some capes? To be trapped forever by their trigger events, unwilling to fully utilize small upside that was their power? Amy and Squeeler had absolutely amazing powers, and they were just throwing them away. I had a thousand ideas for each of them, and a million synergies when combining the two. But they wouldn't, as long as they were stuck in their loops.

Lisa picked up after the fourth ring, "Hello?"

"Hey, it's me."

"Oh, thank god! You're OK. Where are you? We got out with some backup from Faultline's Crew."

"I'm at the hospital. Got Panacea to patch me up."

A new Perspective popped into my awareness- and it was like the double-vision of Grue's darkness all over again. The Perspective moved in slow motion, or was he moving in extreme motion? Regardless, two separate flows of time were happening to me simultaneously and while I could handle it just fine, it was... weird.

"Hurry," I said, eyeing the direction my new Perspective had appeared. He had stopped behind a vehicle and was reporting back to home base. "The Protectorate is here and the PRT won't be far behind."

****ADMINISTATION****

"Hello, Velocity," Specter said.

Immediately the world dropped into brown tones as Velocity activated his power. Sepia. That was the color. My body couldn't move as my mind clocked up to match Velocity's Perspective, and I let the illusion of Specter continue unaffected. I felt Velocity's eyes widen in astonishment as Specter continued to pace in the frozen world. A splotch of black spotted with blue and green stars in a world of red and brown. Velocity continued to walk and I matched him, like two snarling dogs circling and waiting for an opening.

Finally I spoke, "Don't worry, I'm here to help." Specter gestured at the frozen Merchants. "Consider these two the first of a series of gifts, courtesy of the Undersiders."

"Undersiders? They're villains."

I scoffed internally. The Undersiders were barely worthy of the labels, compared to the rest of the Bay's underworld. Tattletale had mentioned Coil was planning on having them hit an ABB casino in the coming weeks, but that wasn't happening now. "Barely worthy of the title and they have reformed. This is the first step of proving our intentions to the PRT and Protectorate."

"You say 'our'. I wasn't aware they had a new member. Got a name?"

"Specter."

"Spooky."

I grimaced in annoyance and made my avatar pulse with an unseen light. I coupled that with a quick chill across Velocity's Perspective and he shivered. "So I'm told. But we're getting off topic. The Undersiders have decided to reform. They're dropping the life of crime, pitifully weak legal charges aside, and will focus more as vigilantes. There has been a change of circumstances that allow us to do so, and our members never intended to become criminals in the first place."

Velocity's disbelief was palpable in his mind, "Oh really? What about Hellhound? She has multiple counts of murder."

"A case of an unfortunate quirk of her power, and circumstances of her trigger. She didn't willingly commit those murders. She's getting support now, and won't be a problem any longer. But this isn't the place to have discussions like this."

"You're right. How about the Undersiders come in to the PRT and we can continue this discussion there?" I could feel the automatic nature of the statement. He said it almost without any thought at all and wasn't expecting a positive answer.

"I think that would be fine," Specter said. Flabbergasted shock. "But only myself, for now."


	5. Perception Interlude

The police tape stretched as Armsmaster moved it over his head, intent on the corpse lying in the middle of the street. Facial recognition verified the police report that this was indeed Thomas Calvert, PRT contractor and acquaintance of Director Piggot. Calvert's slack face was visible, eyes open to the sky with mouth slightly agape. The back of his head was another matter, Armsmaster noted as he stepped around the body. Dark red blood and little bits littered the street behind the man, testifying to a brutal execution-style killing. A cold-blooded murder in one of the safest neighborhoods in the city. Even in Brockton Bay, this was remarkable. When the victim was a PRT asset, it was likely a statement.

Armsmaster kept a loose eye on his auto-documentation suite as it scanned the area using a variety of sensors. Visible light, ultraviolet, infrared, and the like were a given, but the suite's capabilities broke right through the conventional spectrum and into the realm of exotic physics. Nothing was out of the ordinary here, and so Armsmaster crouched down to get a closer look at the asphalt behind the victim. Just a few inches outside of the red stains in the gravel was a little hole in the ground, a yellow evidence tag right next to it. After getting detailed scans of the area, Armsmaster reached in and a pair of tweezers extended from his gauntlet to extract the bullet. Nine millimeter hollow-point by the look of the heavily mushroomed tip. Nothing much to learn without a murder weapon.

"Hey! Don't tamper with the evidence!" A plainclothes detective approached Armsmaster through the police line, an angry scowl on his face. His name appeared on Armsmaster's HUD as Detective Hudson.

"I've already fully documented the scene with greater technical capability than the BBDP possesses, and the PRT will be happy to share any approved RFIs that come in via the usual channel, Detective. As the victim is a PRT asset, you know this is under PRT and Protectorate jurisdiction."

As if waiting for his words, a PRT van pulled around the corner and parked on a neighboring lawn right outside of the perimeter. It had the words _PRT_ _Division of Internal Crime_ emblazoned on the side. Before the brakes had stopped squealing, a small army of uniformed PRT agents began spilling out of the vehicle.

"That's bullshit." the detective growled. "The victim was a contractor. He was not staff, and there is no evidence of any parahuman involvement or evidence of hostility against the PRT."

Armsmaster was about to respond when the detective's phone rang. "This is Hudson. Yeah. You what?" After a short, quick exhale through his nostrils, he sent a white-lipped glare towards Armsmaster. "Yeah, we'll be right there."

With a snap of his flip phone, he began to walk towards Calvert's house and gestured for Armsmaster to follow. "Looks like I'll be home in time for dinner after all." He did not look happy at the idea.

Upstairs in the master bedroom Armsmaster found a junior CSI snapping pictures. Behind the man, against the wall was a modern, very expensive looking desk. It boasted a mix of aluminum, glass, and dark gnarled hardwood. On the desk was a laptop dock and a pair of large computer monitors. One of the monitors had been heavily disturbed and sported a shattered screen. The laptop itself was conspicuously absent.

On the bed, laid neatly on top of a piled, voluminous comforter was a body suit. It was black, with a silver snake twisting around the right leg and torso. It's open fangs framed the bodysuit's face. A piece of paper was pinned to the body suit. Frowning, Armsmaster took the paper and read the hasty scrawl:

 _The problem with being a snake is someone may decide to do away with it's head._

****ADMINISTATION****

Lisa dropped me off a few houses down and I ran through the rain to my house, domino mask hidden inside the replacement sweater that Lisa had loaned me. My previous attire was ruined from the scorched holes in the side and back and mud had permanently stained my sweater and pants. I hopped up the steps in a single, sliding leap, desperate to get out of the rain that was still coming down in torrential waves. The kitchen light was still on, and I saw my dad at the table, head in his hands and phone right in front of him, its cord trailing away and out of sight. My blood froze. This was going to be a bad conversation.

He hadn't heard me due to the pounding rain and the front porch was darkened because of a blown light bulb that had never been replaced. I was stooped in darkness, key hovering in front of the lock. Dad looked... defeated. I couldn't see his face, but his shoulders were slumped and hair messy. Whenever I saw him like that I wondered if it was because of me, or...

I turned the key and unlocked the door.

"Taylor!" was the first thing Dad said, standing quickly as I entered the kitchen.

"Dad, I'm so sorry!" I said. "I was hanging out with Lisa, she's a friend, and we lost track of time..."

This was, apparently, not what he expected. "You... you were just... what?"

"I was hanging out with Lisa," I repeated, "We uh, went to the mall... since it was raining, and we had originally planned on going to the Market. She's a few years older so she drove..."

"And you didn't think to tell me, to call, or... or leave a note? I got home and you were just gone!"

"I know! It was dumb... But..." I was so going to Hell, "But, uh, well this was the first time we had hung out and I was having fun and just forgot."

"It's goddamn midnight, Taylor!"

I winced at the outburst, and looked down at the table. Dad had been building himself up as I spoke, that temper beginning to reach a critical pressure, and it finally blew the emergency relief valve. He visibly deflated after a second, red faced and breathing heavily. "You can't just not tell me where you are, Taylor. I'm glad you have a new friend you're spending your time with, but that's no excuse."

"I know, and I'm sorry," I said. "We're planning on going out tomorrow after school," I said, trying to make something of an olive branch. "See a movie probably."

Dad hesitated at that, "Taylor," he began. That sounded bad, "I'm glad you're spending time out with a friend, really, but you scared me tonight. I thought... well... I don't know what I thought, but the possibilities were terrifying. I want to meet Lisa, and... and I think I need to ground you this weekend."

My mouth moved a few times without sound as I tried to process that. "But..."

Dad nodded, "I can't just let this go without consequence, Taylor. That was careless and you scared me."

"But, I already said I was going to go... I can't just cancel on Lisa like that."

"If she's a true friend, she'll understand," Dad said.

I was getting angry now, and I stood from my chair, fists clenched. "You don't get to just decide that you'll start parenting again, just because _you_ got a little freaked out that I was home late. Today was the first time I can say I was somewhat happy in a long time, and it's not right that you take that away because you feel it's what a Father _should_ do, like some... simulation or something. You want to start getting involved in my life, you should have started a long time ago," _The smell, the darkness, the bugs, the stars._ "Not now! You're too late!"

"Taylor!"

I began to run up the stairs.

"Taylor, I'm still your father and-"

I slammed the door and flopped down on my bed. Dad didn't follow me. My hand went to my lower back, where I felt smooth, unblemished skin.

My room was still dark. There was no pain, but I remembered the fleshy red lava ringed by blackened char. They covered my back and sides and ate the skin to reveal something underneath. I was soaking wet from the rain. I burned away as I fumed in the darkness.

****ADMINISTATION****

"So let me get this straight," Assault said the ENE Protectorate sat in their preferred conference room, "This new cape is able to stop you from doing your 'The Flash' thing?"

Velocity slapped his hand to his forehead and began to shake it, elbow resting on the table. "No. It's not that he interfered or stopped me, its that he matched me when I was doing my thing. He was able to keep up and talk to me as I was at top speed."

"Wait. When you're speeding around, does it seem like you're going super fast, or does it seem like you're going normal speeds and everyone else is slow?"

Velocity added his other hand to his forehead and sagged, "It's both, and somewhat hard to explain. I have plenty of reaction time, but it doesn't feel like it takes me an entire day to run across the city."

"Something you would know if you actually bothered to read your teammates' profiles," Battery chimed in.

Armsmaster frowned and motioned for Velocity to continue, adding another 14.3 seconds of wasted time to Assault's tab for the meeting. "In my speed state, he was able to move and talk to me like normal. I don't know what that means, how the power interacts, or anything. Just that it's what happened."

"And he said that he was willing to meet with the Director?" Velocity nodded.

Armsmaster shook his head, confused. "But what's his goal? What he's shown of his power already, he must have some method of escape."

"Maybe," Miss Militia said from behind her spangled kerchief, "He's being sincere. He did capture Squeeler and Skidmark for us."

"Claimed the Undersiders were going legit too," Velocity added.

"Hmm. What did we learn from Skidmark and Squeeler?"

"Besides a few new explicit phrases, not much," said Dauntless.

Armsmaster looked at Dauntless, a frown forming that he was sure was only partially hidden behind his goatee. "Absolutely nothing? No mention about Specter's powers, their method of capture, nothing?"

"Sir, unless you have another interpretation for, _'_ Lick my drippy asshole and let me call my lawyer' then no."

The intercom on the table buzzed and a feminine voice said, "Armsmaster, sir, Panacea and Glory Girl, and Brandish are here."

Armsmaster pressed the talk button and told the secretary to show them up. As they waited for the New Wave heroes, they moved onto other topics, "And what about reports of Tinker weapons being used by the merchants?"

"They seem to hold water," Battery said. "We got some cellphone footage of them fighting the Undersiders. Well, at least based on the fact that they were firing into Grue's darkness. The video didn't actually capture any of the members themselves."

"At least circumstantial evidence that Specter really is a part of the Undersiders, then. They were fighting the Merchants just before Specter met with Velocity." He looked around the table and continued, "As you know, Thomas Calvert was found murdered in the street outside his home three days ago. What you haven't been told is that Coil's costume was found laid out on his bed, with a note heavily insinuating that Calvert was Coil."

Shocked exclamations came from the assembled heroes, and Armsmaster held up his hand to forestall questions. "I bring this up now because the Merchants got their hands on Tinkertech weapons previously known to be used by Coil's soldiers. If that's the case, then this is the first real blunder that we know of on Coil's part, and we need to seriously consider that the accusation is true."

Further discussion was cut short by a tone announcing the arrival of the Dallons. "Well, I guess that's our cue," Assault said, and stood up quickly. "Coming, Puppy?"

Battery rolled her eyes, but also stood, along with Dauntless. This part of the meeting was reserved for Armsmaster, Miss Militia as his second, and Velocity as the hero present for the events in the hospital parking lot.

The three Dallons took their seats, Amy flanked on each side by Carol and Victoria. "Thank you for coming in to discuss the altercation at the hospital and the arrest of the supervillains Skidmark and Squeeler. This interview is being recorded as a matter of process." Armsmaster then nodded to Miss Militia to begin the questions.

"Brandish, Glory Girl, Panacea. Thank you for coming in and conducting this interview. Now Amy, could you please go over the events of last night?"

Amy fidgeted in her seat, pulling her hands off the conference table and into her lap before saying, "Well, I didn't see any Merchants. But I, uh, was working at the hospital when I got a text from Vicky. She said she was flying in a victim of a gang fight. I ran out to the parking lot, where she had landed with a girl. She had a big scorch mark on her back and another on her side."

"Like from an energy weapon?" Armsmaster interrupted. "And what did the girl look like?"

Amy frowned at Armsmaster and increased her already considerable slouch. "It felt most similar to an extremely bad electrical burn. Closest thing I can remember was a cape who took a glancing arc of Behemoth's lightning. It was pretty bad."

"That's consistent with laser weaponry, yes," Armsmaster said. "And the victim?"

"Young. A year or two younger than me I think. Skinny. Her hair was brown, I think? No, I think it was black."

"So a skinny teen girl with black hair? Anything else? Any identifying marks?"

"Er, not that I can remember. I was more focused on healing her, not looking at her face. She was definitely a teen though. Not Squeeler if that's what you're thinking."

"Was the girl a parahuman?"

Amy stiffened at the question.

"Amy, don't answer that." Brandish shot a stern look at Armsmaster. "That is an inappropriate question for this interview. New Wave does not have secret identities, but we respect the desire for privacy for those capes that do," she said sharply.

Miss Militia decided to interject at that point, "Besides Squeeler and Skidmark, there was another cape there. He identified himself to Velocity as Specter."

"A new villain who claimed to be with the Undersiders," Armsmaster said.

With a glance towards her mother, Amy carefully picked her words, "The girl wasn't in a costume or anything. Vicky said she was a bystander."

"Hey," Victoria said, "I just want to say that I wasn't there. I never brought anyone to the hospital last night, or texted my sister that I was. I was at home. We checked her phone last night and the message got erased somehow."

Armsmaster nodded, "Yes, the discrepancy you explained." To Amy he said, "I'll need your phone, of course, to see if I can recover and trace that message."

"But! It's my phone!"

"Are you asking or telling Amy to give up her phone?" Carol asked, "And if you are telling, do you have a warrant?"

Armsmaster sighed and said, "Asking, but it's critical I look at it as quickly as possible."

Carol turned to her daughter, "Well, Amy? Do you want to volunteer your phone?"

Amy shifted again, gazing at the table with a scowl on her face before digging a phone out of her pocket and setting it in front of Armsmaster. He scooped it up with a satisfied nod.

"Thank you, Amy," Miss Militia said. "Was there anything else you can remember about the girl you healed, or about anything after?"

"Er, no. It was pretty routine. Vicky flew off with the girl after I healed her, and I went back into the hospital to finish my shift."

Armsmaster looked to Victoria in disapproval, "You did not bother to admit the victim to the hospital?"

"I wasn't there!" Victoria exclaimed.

Armsmaster's mouth opened to reply, before he suddenly stopped himself and pressed his lips into a thin line. "Yes. Well." He looked back to Amy, "Did you see anyone else? Are you sure you didn't see Squeeler or Skidmark? They were apprehended by Velocity at the exact time hospital security cameras show you walking out of the ER."

"Er, no," Amy said, "I didn't see anyone besides my sister and the girl."

"Did the girl say anything to you or your sister?" Miss Militia asked.

Amy thought for a second, "No, she didn't. That's strange, actually. Normally they would say 'thank you', or something." Then, after a short pause, she grimaced and glared at the conference table.

"Velocity, can you describe what you saw for Amy?" Armsmaster said.

Velocity repeated his finding of the Merchants and a cape named Specter. He explained how Specter was some sort of changer or stranger, with a void-into-space body and ability to counter the speedster.

Armsmaster picked up the conversation once Velocity finished, "So we have Panacea saying she saw her sister and a victim, Velocity finding an unknown cape and two Merchants, and Glory Girl saying that she was never there. Three entirely conflicting stories, with the physical evidence leaning towards Velocity, seeing as how two capes are in PRT custody."

"I _did_ heal a girl though!" Amy exclaimed looking up from the spot on the table, "I used my power on her. She was definitely female, my age, and I definitely healed her. She was real!"

Armsmaster looked at Miss Militia, who returned his gaze steadily.

"Assuming that Specter is the cause of all this confusion, we may be looking at a heavy hitting changer or shaker," Armsmaster said.

Miss Militia turned towards the fuming girl. "We don't doubt what you're saying, Amy. We simply don't have the context needed to understand your perspective on what happened."

"That's fine," said Carol from beside Amy, "It seems that you have your work cut out for you. Was there anything else we can do for the Protectorate today?"

The interview concluded, and Armsmaster sat at the table, holding Amy's phone in his hands and looking at his teammates.

"This doesn't make any sense," said Miss Militia.

"Two stories are consistent. Glory girl wasn't there and has other witnesses to confirm that fact, and Velocity has the captures to prove his story is reliable. The outlier here is Panacea."

Miss Militia cut in, "Amy's description of the girl was very vague. A skinny teen with brown or black hair. That describes half the high school population of the city. And the girl didn't even say anything? It's strange."

"But what about her power?" Velocity asked, "She said that she touched a young girl with burn marks. I'd say pulling a fast one over Panacea's power is nearly impossible."

"There's precedence with Specter overcoming _your_ power," Armsmaster said. "I'll begin analysis of the phone. Please finish your report and provide it to the director. She will decide how we will handle Specter, if he actually shows up." With that, he stood abruptly and strode from the room, rear cameras revealing his subordinates looking at each other with expressions he couldn't place. It didn't matter. Between Panacea's episode, Coil and Calvert, and the shakeup of the Merchants, something was afoot. Armsmaster needed to take this new cape... Specter... with utmost seriousness.

It was a few hours later when he was sure that there were no traces left of any message sent to Panacea's phone during the time of the incident. That didn't mean that it hadn't happened, of course, just that if there had been a message, it had been very skillfully erased. He replaced the battery and snapped the phone back together before setting it down. A tone beeped in his ear indicating an incoming message, "This is console to Armsmaster or any Protectorate member hearing this, please respond."

"This is Armsmaster," Colin responded.

"Sir, I have reason to believe Shadow Stalker engaged in a school fight in her civilian identity and may be seriously injured."

Great, just what he needed. "I'm on my way. Tell me what you know."

****ADMINISTATION****

I was still smoldering the next morning at school. Shadow Stalker seemed to be recovered from her psychosomatic flu and her suspicion towards me hadn't lessened at all. Her thoughts kept returning to me, little Taylor Hebert, as I monitored her Perspective. It had finally come to a head, I think. She was suspicious to the point of paranoia, not letting even Emma in on her thoughts. She had a vague plan to confront me after school, but I wasn't really thinking that was in my best interests. I was... tired of avoiding this. The story I had crafted during my trigger event had held up this long, but it was beginning to unravel now.

I tried to center myself in my computer class, but the fuming anger coming from my other Perspective did not help my mood. That goddamn psycho wouldn't leave me alone. Just like Emma, I was done.

So I walked into the lunch room for the first time this year and sat down at an empty table, brown bagged lunch in hand. There were always open tables as a matter of courtesy between the various school factions. Just a little no man's land in the middle of a high school cafeteria, no biggie. I was a few tables away from a particularly blonde group of students, and I started into my sandwich.

Shadow Stalker came in soon enough, and I gave her Perspective two calculated tweaks. One was a significantly louder drone of conversation from the student body, and the second was a head of long blonde hair retreated from my table, having just lifted her hand from my shoulder.

Shadow Stalker saw Michaela Sharp walk away from me to sit a few tables away and fire burned in her belly. It was a very poorly kept secret that Michaela was something of a female leader among the Kaiser Youth of the school. She was blonde, tall, beautiful, with a cute smattering of racism dotting her demeanor. Needless to say, my other Perspective was very, very angry.

Under the cover of the unusually loud drone of students and surreptitious glances around the room to see no one was watching, Shadow Stalker made her way over to my table. She slid into the bench across from me and said, "Really, Hebert? I knew you were a loser, but that's a new low, even for you."

I centered myself, pausing for just a moment to collect my powers and my thoughts, before beginning my waltz. "What are you talking about, Sophia?" I said aloud.

Her Perspective heard something different.

"Shut your mouth, Hebert!" she hissed. In a flash of nails she dug her perfect manicured claws into the back of my hand. Her Perspective showed me stay silent beside a slight hiss of pain and flash of defiant eyes. In reality, I gave a pitiful yelp that cut through the low conversation of the cafeteria. A few members of Michaela's clique turned our way, saw what was happening, and nudged neighbors to get their attention.

The cafeteria quieted further, but Shadow Stalker's Perspective heard only a loud roar and saw only anonymity. "You're playing a stupid fucking game talking with them, Hebert."

I stared back defiantly.

"You think I was being serious before? That was just a game. You've opened Pandora's fucking box by trying to get protection."

Through her eyes, I saw myself give a dazzling white smile. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Hess."

The needles on the back of my hand became a bone creaking grip, but still I didn't make any noise. The cafeteria was blissfully ignorant of our confrontation.

That is until Michaela came up and tapped Shadow Stalker on the shoulder. "Sophia, how about you take your hand back? Taylor doesn't seem to like what you're doing."

Shadow Stalker released my hand and jumped to her feet, surprised at Michaela's sudden appearance. "What do you want? I'm just talking with Taylor."

"Doesn't look like talking to me," Michaela said. "Now, we're all friends here. We're all reasonable people. So why don't you leave Taylor alone. What do you say," she leaned slightly towards Shadow Stalker, " _friend?_ "

Except my other Perspective didn't hear the word 'friend.' No, she definitely didn't.

With a screech, Shadow Stalker balled her right fist and laid into Michaela with a perfectly executed right hook. Michaela dropped like a stone, and the rest of the cafeteria erupted into chaos.

Three of Michaela's largest female friends launched themselves at Shadow Stalker and proceeded to beat the crap out of her, aided by surreptitious use of my power. She didn't see punches as early as she should have. She wasted movement dodging non-existent attacks, and overall demonstrated to the other students that her bark was a lot louder than her bite. The three girls together took her to the floor, and from there took her apart in a flurry of blows and Perspective of pain.

I ducked away from the fight, pushing through the circle that was forming around the brawl. The no man's land quickly filled up with students, a circle segmented by the skin color of screaming teenagers as they swarmed in from their respective territories.

Well then. I ducked out of the cafeteria with only last look back and saw security guards rushing in to break of the fight. Also, more importantly, I saw dozens of cell phones recording the event.

Once I was clear of the school, I took out my phone and dialed Lisa.

"Hey, its me. Can you pick me up? Yeah, I'm fine. Got out early."

****ADMINISTATION****

"Come on out, sex machine!" Lisa cackled from the living room.

I sighed and looked myself over in the mirror. Parian had been true to her word and finished my costume in record time. It was exactly as discussed: protective, un-themed, and dark. First and foremost was a vest with trauma plates in both the front and back. I was surprised at how light the vest was before Lisa informed me that she used some of 'Cobra Security's contacts' to source a special type of polyethylene thread that was able to work with Parian's power. I didn't really understand what Lisa was saying, but basically Parian was over the moon with the stuff and business deals had been worked out. For me, it meant a lightweight vest that was resistant to most conventional small arms. The vest was black and went directly over a thin, black body suit. Around my waist was a skirt made from a shiny black fabric, thick and pleated. A pistol was firmly fixed on my right hip. Over the vest, skirt, and pistol was a stereotypical leather trench coat with high collar, shaking up the color scheme a bit in a dark black.

The piece de resistance was, of course, the mask. It looked like carbon fiber in shine and pattern, but Lisa had informed me that it was made from the same material as my vest, and just as bulletproof. It covered my full face, hairline to below my chin, and was almost snakelike in its contour. There was no defined nose, just a smooth ridge down from just below the eyes to the chin. The cheekbones and temples, however, were defined with sunken areas, giving the mask an almost sickly, sallow appearance. It was... streamlined... and spooky. I loved it.

With the exception of the mask, it was all very simple and unremarkable. In a way I was relieved. There were no gimmicks. It was extremely well made and protective, and it was obvious to anyone giving it a first glance that it's wearer meant business.

I pushed open the door with a sigh, watching it swing open from the other side via four Perspectives. As soon as they saw me, Lisa jumped to her feet and fist pumped. "Looking hot, Taylor!"

Alec just wolf whistled with a small smirk. Brian, being the expressive one, nodded. Rachel grunted.

"Sounds like unanimous approval to me," Lisa said. "Now do a turn."

I did, and I saw the coat billow out like it was being worn by a born badass. "It's pretty cool." I said.

"You bet it is," Lisa said, "I know you aren't going to be showing it off too often to other capes, but you need something for the mooks."

"Never underestimate a mook with nothing to lose," Alec said sagely.

I rolled my eyes beneath the mask. "So it works, then?"

"Yes, it does," Brian said. "It looks really good."

The mask felt hot. "Well, uh, thanks guys."

I didn't stay for much longer as I needed to get home before Dad, so as to not openly flaunt his punishment. I asked her to swing by downtown, and then parallel park in a spot near the PRT building. There, I listened in to a few new Perspectives. Dennis, Clockblocker was there on his computer, and a new Perspective, Aegis, Carlos, was on console duty. With a few tweaks to Clockblocker's vision, I nodded to Lisa and we pulled away. She didn't ask, but just looked at me grimly. Listening to her inner monologue, I just shrugged in response. She accepted it.

As usual, Lisa offered to drive me home and told me about her plans while I was at school, a meet up with an old Coil contact in the Merchants, Trainwreck. I had seen his Perspective during my very brief captivity at Skidmark's hands, and my recollection agreed with Lisa's belief that he had cut ties as soon as he realized Coil was dead, a Merchant now in truth. Trainwreck was also the source of the stolen laser weapons that had been used against us last night. Needless to say I was nervous about the idea, but Lisa insisted on trying to extract information from him.

So she dropped me off with an admonishment to rest over the weekend and not worry about any caping. She told me to apologize to my dad (I hadn't told her we fought) and that she would be glad to meet him and give him reassurances that she was a wholesome girl who would be a good influence on Danny's innocent little girl.

She drove away with a grin, cackle, and a wave.

****ADMINISTATION****

Keeping with tradition that went back millennia, Aegis disliked console duty as much as the next ward. It ate entire afternoons or evenings, and while rarely eventful, required just enough concentration that you couldn't distract yourself with schoolwork or cat videos. However, he was also team leader and therefore had a responsibility to demonstrate discipline to his teammates. The comm was quiet and Aegis dutifully filled out what paperwork he could so as to minimize the time wasted at the end of his shift. He was making progress, and the quiet airwaves was always a good thing for the Protectorate.

"Carlos, you need to see this!"

Aegis jumped at the sudden shattering of his concentration as Dennis barreled into the Wards common area from his room, open laptop in hand.

He slid the laptop onto the console table, Aegis' carefully organized paperwork falling to the floor in a flutter of sheaves. Aegis was about to lay into Clockblocker when he noticed what was on the screen.

Sophia screaming in rage and knocking a girl out. Dennis dragged the video's slider back to the beginning, and Carlos watched in horror and disbelief as Shadow Stalker, his begrudging teammate, proved that all of his worst fears about her were true.

"Sophia, you're hurting me. Please let me go," a thin girl begged his teammate, her hand pinned painfully to the table under Sophia's nails.

"Shut your mouth, Hebert," Sophia hissed.

"Please, why are you doing-"

"You're playing a stupid fucking game talking with them, Hebert."

"Sophia, what are you... Why are you always bullying me? Why are you doing this?"

"You think I was serious before? That was just a game. You've opened Pandora's fucking box by trying to get protection."

"I have no idea what you're talking about!" the girl wailed.

Then, a third girl came up to Sophia and her victim. "Sophia, how about you take your hand back? Taylor doesn't seem to like what you're doing."

Sophia jumped to her feet, startled, and looked around the room before addressing the newcomer. "What do you want? I'm just talking with Taylor."

"Doesn't seem like talking to me," the new girl replied conversationally, "Now, we're all friends here. We're all reasonable people. So why don't you leave Taylor alone, what do you say?" She leaned in and smiled at Sophia, "Friend?"

Then Sophia went berserk and knocked the girl out with a right hook. It was a full pivot of her feet and hips, just like the Wards were trained to do, and connected with the girl's temple. The girl dropped like a sack of bricks, then everything erupted into pandemonium. The camera shook for a few moments before coming back into focus at the event horizon of a circle surrounding three girls beating the crap out of his teammate as they rolled around on the floor. That went on for something like half a minute before school security broke it up. Sophia was out cold, and looked to be in bad condition.

The video ended, and Carlos, turned to Dennis. "Dennis... when..." he swallowed a dry lump. "When was this posted?"

"Dude, like an hour ago. I saw it pop up on my news feed just now."

"Damn it, Dennis!" Carlos bolted out of his seat, using his power to fly to the door, before realizing his mistake. He returned to the console and snatched up the microphone. "This is console to Armsmaster or any Protectorate member hearing this, please respond."

"This is Armsmaster," came the calm reply.

"Sir, I have reason to believe Shadow Stalker engaged in a school fight in her civilian identity, and may be seriously injured."

There was only the smallest of pauses, "I'm on my way. Tell me what you know."

Carlos, Aegis dutifully relayed what he had seen on the video, trying not to think about what he had learned about his teammate. For now, she was hurt and needed immediate help. Hating her could wait.


End file.
